Deputy to the governor of Flemish Brabant

Introduction

The function of deputy to the governor only exists in the province of Flemish Brabant and is a typical emanation of the pacification processes between the communities that characterize Belgium. The function was created as part of a larger compromise to set off the possible impact and consequences of splitting the province of Brabant for the French-speaking inhabitants in 'de Rand', the municipalities in the Flemish periphery around Brussels. Together with other institutions such as the 'Vaste Commissie voor Taaltoezicht' (Standing Commission for Linguistic Supervision) and the vice-governor of Brussels-Capital, the deputy to the governor has to help monitor the linguistic peace.

The deputy to the governor of the province of Flemish Brabant is in charge of supervising the application of the laws and regulation regarding the use of languages in administrative affairs and education in the six municipalities in the Flemish periphery around Brussels with a special language status, namely Drogenbos, Kraainem, Linkebeek, Sint-Genesius-Rode, Wemmel and Wezembeek-Oppem.¹ Although there are municipalities elsewhere where the inhabitants enjoy linguistic concessions, the exceptional situation only applies to the six municipalities in the Flemish periphery around Brussels.

Origin of the office

At the time of the splitting of the province of Brabant into Flemish Brabant, Walloon Brabant and Brussels, within the framework of the Saint Michael's Agreement (1992) and carried out as of 1 January 1995, the principle of territoriality was pushed on structurally. In order to meet the request of the French-speaking inhabitants to maintain a body in the Dutch-speaking linguistic region that supervises the linguistic usage and the application of the language laws, the function of deputy to the governor of Flemish Brabant was created in 1995, by analogy with the vice-governor of the bilingual Brussels-Capital. In the former province of Brabant, the vice-governor's mission was to supervise compliance with the language laws in the entire province. The splitting of the province subsequently led to a splitting of this function: a vice-governor remains active for the Brussels-Capital Region and the six municipalities in the Flemish periphery around Brussels received the deputy to the governor to deal with their linguistic grievances.

Parallelism with the vice-governor for Brussels-Capital

In discussions regarding the legitimacy of the function of deputy to the governor, reference was always made to the parallelism with the vice-governor of Brussels-Capital. As the counterpart for the vice-governor of Brussels-Capital, the deputy to the governor also carries out exactly the same tasks, with one exception: only the Brussels vice-governor is authorised to replace the Brussels governor during his absence. Since the Lambermont Agreement, the Government of Flanders is authorised to appoint and dismiss the deputy to the governor. The deputy to the governor is thus a Flemish civil servant and is appointed after the unanimous advisory opinion of the federal council of Ministers. The difference with the vice-governor reveals itself in the names. For Brussels, the title of vice-governor was maintained, but at the insistence of the Flemish negotiators, the choice was made to use the description deputy to the governor.² The law texts initially used both the description of deputy to the governor and deputy governor.³

Competences: 'general specifically administrative supervision'

The part of deputy to the governor is twofold.⁴ There is the supervising mission which implies the specific administrative supervision of the municipal authorities in the six municipalities in the Flemish periphery around Brussels.⁵ The mayors of these municipalities have to send copies of the decrees regarding the application of the language legislation within eight days. In practice however, it is found that not every local administration is consistent in transferring this information. If the decisions are not in agreement with the language legislation, the deputy to the governor can suspend them, as a result of which the decision in question cannot be implemented during 40 days. The Government of Flanders and the governor of the province of Brabant can then annul this suspension in their turn. The second part of the set of tasks is the investigation of complaints regarding the violation of the language legislation that are lodged by private persons from the six municipalities in the Flemish periphery around Brussels. Within this mission, the deputy to the governor can start an investigation, mediate between the complaining party and the authorities, make observations and recommendations, or transfer the complaint to the Standing Commission for Linguistic Supervision (SCLS) for further treatment. This part is also described as that of language ombudsman. The deputy to the governor has his/her own personal staff and political advisers at his/her disposal.⁶ These services are housed in the provincial building in Leuven, but operate in a completely independent manner of the province. The costs are shared by the Government of Flanders and the federal government. 
From the outset, the function of deputy to the governor has been under discussion. Both among the opposition and among the majority parties, voices were heard to do away with the function.⁷ The tasks of the deputy to the governor are after all closely connected to those of the VCT and furthermore, the ever decreasing amount of complaints was called in as an argument. As the jurisdiction threw more light on certain vague points and points of contention, the number of complaints dropped and thus also the service's workload. In the final report however, the deputy to the governor makes mention of an increase in the total work volume in comparison with the 2005-2007 period.⁸
As a result of the retirement of deputy to the governor Guy Desolre in 2005, reservations with respect to the office were made once again and also when there was a void in Brussels in 2012 after the retirement of the Brussels vice-governor Hugo Nys and a Dutch-speaking successor was not immediately appointed, the continued existence of the function was questioned. Critics also invoke budgetary arguments in this context. After all, the function of deputy to the governor is, with respect to status and remuneration, treated as being equal to the function of provincial governor whereas the tasks of the former are limited to six municipalities. On the other hand, it is said that this function fits in with the pacification attempts of the Belgian political order with a view to peace between the communities. The federal coalition agreement of 2011 provides for that matter that the function of governor of the Brussels-Capital Region is done away with and that an ‘intra-Brussels ad hoc working group' will examine how to maintain the missions of the vice-governor.

Core numbers: Number of complaints since 1995

On the basis of the activity reports of the deputy to the governor, it is possible to get an idea of the nature and the number of complaints that have been lodged so far. However, in the activity reports until 2004, the information was provided in a different manner. The number of complaints was mentioned then, whereas for the period as of 2005 only the percentages of handled cases are given. The clear peak in 1998 is a result of the commotion regarding the Peeters directive.⁹

^{Graph 1: Number of complaints lodged with the deputy to the governor, 1995-2004 period}

Provenance of the complaints

The majority of complaints come from inhabitants of the six municipalities in the Flemish periphery around Brussels, but complaints from the Brussels-Capital Region and from other municipalities in Flemish Brabant have also been recorded.

^{Graph 2: Ratio Dutch-language / French-language complaint lodgers, 1995-2011}

Nature of the complaints

As indicated earlier, the deputy to the governor has several missions: The largest part of the workload regards the supervision of the local administrations, as shown from the table below, on the basis of the activity reports of the current deputy to the governor, Valérie Flohimont.

^{Table 1: Distribution of files according to the nature of the mission (in percentages)}

In proportion to the past periods, more decisions are suspended. In the 2005-2007 period, this amounts to 2% of the decisions or a quadruplication in comparison with the preceding period, in 2008-2009 it amounts to 4%. The most interventions and almost all decisions of suspension concern the appointments of the teaching staff and administrative personnel in the French-language municipal primary schools.¹⁰
Another difference with her predecessor is that the current deputy to the governor declares herself incompetent in more cases. For the February 1995 to September 2005 period, that did only happen in 1% of the cases, whereas for the 2005-2007 period it amounted to 19% and for 2008-2009 even to 25% of the complaint files.¹¹ In the 2010-2011 period, it remains at 24%.¹²

Pacification politics

The legislator had had the intention to solve disagreements between the communities as much as possible by the language legislation, by adapting the state structures, by conducting the consultation in commissions and by creating bodies that are able to channel disputes in order not to hinder the day-to-day functioning of the government. The creation of the Standing Commission for Linguistic Supervision, the deputy to the governor of Flemish Brabant and the vice-governor of Brussels-Capital must be considered within the framework of such language conflict prevention by the authorities. Further research could give a decisive answer about the impact of moments of community issues on the functioning of these bodies. How the vagueness and points of contention in the legislation and the interpretation margins that were occasioned by them caused complaints or requests for advice constitutes an open field of research as well. Do these complaints drop after judgements by the competent legal bodies? Did the confirmation of the legal validity of the Peeters directive make the number of complaint lodgers drop? A comparative investigation into possible correlations between the incoming questions and complaints with these mediating bodies would throw more light on their conflict-regulating effect.

VOETNOTEN

MORE INFORMATION

• Clement Jan, D'Hondt Hans, Van Crombrugge Jan, Vanderveeren Christine, Het Sint-Michielsakkoord en zijn achtergronden, Maklu Uitgevers, 1993.
• Desolre Guy, De vijfde staatshervorming en haar administratieve gevolgen voor het ambt van Adjunct van de gouverneur, Leuven, Dienst van de Adjunct-gouverneur, december2001.
• Koppen Jimmy, Distelmans Bart, Janssens Rudi, Taalfaciliteiten in de Rand. Ontwikkelingslijnen, conflictgebieden en taalpraktijken, in Brusselse Thema's 9, VUBPRESS, 2002.