The various roles and functions of a mayor and the resulting consequences were the subject of a recent dispute before the Administrative Court (VG) Düsseldorf (Ref.: 1 K 3351/24 of 14 March 2025). The Lord Mayor of Krefeld had spontaneously and critically responded to a speech by an AfD representative at the council meeting. In the opinion of the AfD politician, the mayor had thus breached his duty of neutrality.

The VG Düsseldorf now had to weigh up in which capacity the Lord Mayor had made the contested speech - as the head of the administration and Chairman of the Council, who was obliged to remain neutral, or as a member of the Council with the right to a free mandate and free speech. In making this demarcation decision, the court based its decision purely on the formalistic fact that the Lord Mayor had not adhered to the order of the list of speakers and, according to the Council's rules of procedure, was only permitted to do so as chairman, but not as a simple councillor. In his function as chairman of the council, he had to refrain from expressing any political opinion.

„In order to act with legal certainty, mayors should strictly and visibly delineate their roles and functions, for example by introducing speeches with an indication of their function. Although this is very formal, it is required by case law. Outside of neutrality, as members of the council in particular, you can also take a strong and political stance against parties and members who are opposed to the free democratic basic order,“ explains Rechtsanwalt Tobias Schröter.