Currently, only a handful of municipalities have revised their police regulations to encompass all the offences within the purview of municipal officers. In response, a campaign has been initiated to encourage mayors and their municipal executive boards (Schäfferot) to revise their police regulations accordingly.
Since January 2023, municipal officers have assumed additional responsibilities in the realm of prevention, with their presence in public spaces geared toward aiding citizens. Laurent Knauf, Senior Advisor at the Ministry of Home Affairs, elaborates, stating that they are now equipped to provide first aid, help the elderly, vulnerable individuals, as well as ensuring schoolchildren safely cross roads, and identifying damages to public infrastructure; reporting them to the local authorities’ technical services.
In addition, these municipal officers are empowered to enforce regulations. Through administrative sanctions, municipal have the authority to impose €25 fines for various forms of incivility. They can also issue penalty notices for criminal offences specified in local by-laws. However, not all offences can currently be penalised. Steve Hatto, President of the Association of Municipal Officers (ASAM), points out that they are awaiting clarification regarding which administration will manage the fines’ back-office operations, particularly concerning special laws.
To fully enable municipal officers to exercise their expanded powers, municipalities must adapt their police regulations. To date, only a handful of communes have taken this step. The Municipality of Mersch, led by Michel Malherbe, was among the first to do so. Malherbe now anticipates a reciprocal response, expressing his desire to secure substantial state funding for this purpose:
“I’d like to get a big budget from the state because, at the end of the day, we have people in uniform working for us. We didn’t plan for them in the budget, and now we have them as a matter of course. And I’d be happy if the state helped us with that because it takes some of the work off of the police.”
Meanwhile, the Municipal Officers’ Association hopes that essential training will be made available to their members, as precision in criminal procedure is indispensable.
