Jan Van den Berghe iswas a lawyer from 1985-1991 and specialized in environmental cases. In 1991 he was nominated judge in the Court of First Instance in Ghent. He dealt mainly with criminal environmental cases and still do so. Since 2002 he is vice president of what is now the Court of First Instance East Flanders. From 2008-2016 he was member of the Belgian High Council of Justice. Mr. Van den Berghe is the funding member of TMR, the Flemish Environmental Law Review, and regular publisherpublished on the topic of environmental law. He is also one of the funding member of the European Union Forum of Judges for the Environment and he is also member of  (EUFJE) since the beginning. Since 1995 he organizes environmental law trainings for the Belgian Judicial Training Institute, the trainings are  (open for judges, prosecutors, inspectors and police).