When the Court finds a breach of these articles, it will pronounce its decision inter partes, meaning the ruling has effect only between the parties of the specific case. Such a judgement, however, has great moral value and will force the parliament which made the targeted law, decree or ordinance in question to amend it. Judges The Court is composed of 12 judges (2 linguistic groups of which 6 Dutch and 6 French speakers, one of them must have an adequate knowledge of German) appointed for their lifetime by the King (in practice, the federal government) within a list of candidates provided by the federal parliament. The list to fill a vacancy contains two candidates proposed alternately by the Chamber of Representatives and the Senate by a majority of at least two-thirds of the members present. Each linguistic group is composed of three judges with a legal background and three judges who have had at least five years experience as members of parliament. Candidates must be at least forty years of age. The judges may hold office until they reach seventy years of age, when they retire from the bench. Currently five of the twelve judges are female. According to a change in 2014 to article 12 of the special law, the membership of the court needs to contain a measure of gender equality: at least a third of its membership needs to be of the opposite sex. Until that number is reached, new appointments are legally obliged to be of the underrepresented sex. However, this obligation has not been respected when Michel Pâques was appointed in 2018. Composition The Court is currently composed as follows: Judges' background Bribosia (b. 1971) is law professor at the ULB de Bethune (b. 1958) is a former member of the Belgian Senate (1995-2021) and of the Flemish Parliament (2014-2019) Detienne (b. 1959) is a former member of the Chamber of Representatives (1991-1999), and minister in the Walloon government (1999-2004) Giet (b. 1958) is a former member of the Chamber of Representatives (1995-2013) Kherbache (b. 1972) is a former member of the Flemish Parliament (2014-2019) and the Chamber of Representatives (2019) Lavryssen (b. 1956) is a law professor and former judge at the Council of State Moerman, JP. (b. 1952) is a former Member of the Chamber of Representatives (1995-2001) Moerman, J. (b. 1958) is a former member of parliament, federal minister of Economy,