Role of the local council

The entire municipal council is renewed every six years in accordance with the electoral law. The last communal elections were held on 08.10.2017 following the proportional representation system. The amended municipal law of 13.12.1988 stipulates among other things
“…… councillors are elected directly by the voters of the municipality, all in the form and manner determined by the electoral law”.

The order of seniority of service of the councillors is recorded on the table of precedence which is established according to the rules dictated by law. The Local Council operates according to the rules laid down by the Local Law and the internal regulations that it has set for itself in accordance with the law. The meetings of the Local Council are public, convened by the College of Aldermen on presentation of an agenda drawn up by it. The decisions of the Communal Council are recorded in a register kept by the Communal Secretary. The councillors have a right of initiative which allows them, in the manner laid down by law, to have a subject of their choice included or amended on the agenda. They also have the right, in accordance with the law and the internal regulations, to make suggestions to the College of Burgomasters and Aldermen concerning the administration of the municipality. It is their responsibility to take note of the decisions of the College of Aldermen taken in execution of the deliberations of the Municipal Council.

The attributions of the Communal Council, in general, are to regulate all that is of communal interest, to deliberate or to give its opinion whenever these deliberations or opinions are required by the laws and regulations or requested by the higher authority and, more specifically, are the following without the enumeration being exhaustive or limitative:

• establishment of advisory boards
• enactment of communal regulations
• appointment, dismissal and resignation of municipal officials and employees
• appointment and dismissal of members of administrative commissions, civil hospices and social boards
• call for referendum
• presentation and, if necessary, vote of a motion of censure in case of rejection of the municipal budget by the municipal council.

It is understood that in the presentation of the functioning of the communal council and in the enumeration of its attributions and those of its members, only the essential and the most important are mentioned and extrapolated, without forgetting the forms of rotation and the supervision exercised by the higher authority, especially the Minister of the Interior and, to another degree, the District Commissioner.

The citizen for his part, belonging to the electorate which is the basis of all representative democracy, has a power of appreciation and control through his ballot paper and through the faculty he has to attend the meetings of the local council and to put forward his case through the intermediary of the elected local councillor and through the possibility he is given to take cognizance of and copy the deliberations of the local council in the forms provided for by the law

The local councillor, apart from the direct exercise of his mandate as a local councillor, either in the majority camp or on the opposition benches, is a member of various consultative commissions, representation delegations, municipal unions and other public bodies.

The current composition of the aldermanic college, the executive of the municipal council, is as follows: two members of the DP fraction and one member of the Déi Greng fraction. The college is supported by four other DP members. The opposition is made up of four councillors, three of whom are members of the CSV fraction and one of whom is a member of the LSAP.

It should be noted that in the exercise of his attributions, every member of the communal council is free to make his own choices, which in plain language means that on the occasion of any vote, every councillor can pronounce himself in favour, reject or abstain on a given question, regardless of whether he belongs to a camp or to a fraction.