Another stinging slap. Sandrine Dauchelle, the mayor LR of Noyonand president of Noyonnais country, has just received a prefectural notice relating to the dismissal of Henri Lamur last month. The conclusion is fraught with consequences. Short version: the dismissal of the Director General of Technical Services (DGST) (who later became Deputy Director General) was illegal.
We remember, Sandrine Dauchelle had alleged irregularities in the contract of director Henri Lamur. After unsuccessfully trying to break his permanent contract for a fixed-term contract, she decided to throw him out after more than ten years of service. All while blaming the country’s mayors who refused to vote for the change of contract. “If I have to fire him, it’s your fault,” she said in substance to the community elected officials.
The sub-prefect says quite the opposite.
It gets stuck in the legality check
In his letter dated Tuesday, November 12, the sub-prefect Christian Guyard returns to the content of Henri Lamur’s dismissal order dated October 21. The order signed by Dauchelle was endorsed by the prefecture as part of “the legality control”, writes the sub-prefect. Classic procedure.
Thus, the president’s dismissal order “indicates canceling due to invalidity, irregularity and illegality the amendment of June 1, 2015 granting Mr. Lamur the title of DGST as well as the contract of December 17, 2019 transforming the latter’s fixed-term contract into an indefinite-term contract from January 1, 2020,” recalls Christian Guyard in his letter.
However, writes the sub-prefect, after work by the State services: “The administration cannot repeal or withdraw a decision creating rights on its own initiative or at the request of a third party unless it is illegal AND if the repeal or withdrawal takes place within the period of four months following the taking of this decision.
In short: the deadline – four months – to end the director’s contract had largely passed. Note that the prefecture does not rule on the question of whether errors had crept into the drafting of the agent’s contract.
The contract didn’t even need to be changed
But, worse, as had been indicated by a number of Sandrine Dauchelle’s political adversaries, despite possible irregularities, it was not even necessary to touch Henri Lamur’s contract: “Beyond this deadline (of four month, Editor’s note), the administration cannot withdraw or repeal these acts and is not required to regularize them,” recalls the sub-prefect who cites the CGCT, general code of local authorities. This provision, understandably, prevents administrations from dismissing agents as they see fit by hanging over their heads, like a sword of Damocles, a poorly drafted contractual clause or provision. Provisions that it seems an HR director or a general director of services should be aware of. Provisions they chose to ignore?
The conclusion of the letter from sub-prefect Christian Guyard is clear: “In the interest of legal certainty, I invite you to withdraw the dismissal order for Mr. Henri Lamur,” he wrote. In other words: this dismissal was illegal, the agent is asked to be reinstated.
Otherwise ? The sub-prefect implicitly suggests in his letter that the case could bring Mayor Sandrine Dauchelle and her community before the administrative court (once again…).
What does the sub-prefect’s letter say about the president’s arguments?
In light of these clarifications from the prefecture, what do we think of President Dauchelle’s arguments to justify the dismissal of Henri Lamur?
Can we believe, as she said in a community session, that she took advice on this matter from the Oise management center? Could this public establishment, participating in the management of local authority personnel, seriously ignore the impossibility of dismissing the agent in question? So that’s a big part of his business?
Can we also believe that the president was obliged to dismiss the agent at the request of the Regional Audit Chamber as she claims? Former president Patrick Deguise, who consulted the CRC report on the accounts of the city of Noyon, assures that he saw no mention of the agents’ contracts. “I don’t believe it for a second,” he declared.
The two administrations, CRC and the management center, which undoubtedly make ideal scapegoats in the eyes of the president, will in any case not be able to defend themselves, due to the duty of reserve and neutrality required.
What will happen to the agent?
So now what will the president do? Ordered to reinstate her former director, will she obey or will she try her luck in court? The outcome of the case could depend in part on Henri Lamur who could be reluctant to reintegrate a community which “fired him like a dog” to use the words of a mayor of Pays Noyonnais. But in the case of – likely – proceedings by the agent before the administrative court, this prefectural decision is already a first victory for him. Faced with the risk of administrative procedures, Henri Lamur did not wish to comment on the matter.
For Sandrine Dauchelle, the bad news keeps piling up. The highly contested president of the Pays Noyonnais, who has alienated two thirds of her assembly and seen almost all her vice-presidents slam the door, constantly says that she is the victim of “jealous” elected officials. , misogynists and revengers. But after this proper reframing by the sub-prefect Christian Guyard, after the volley of the prefect of Oise then of the Regional Chamber of Accounts on the subject of her budget earlier in the year, Sandrine Dauchelle will have more and more difficult to involve the people of Noyon in his narrative.
