In a wheelchair, Odile Maurin wants to be able to “play her role as elected” and have the means to do so
“Everything is done to persuade me to let go of my mandate. “Elected opposition to the town hall of Toulouse and within the metropolitan council, Odile Maurin has decided to step up to denounce what she considers to be” a violation of democratic fairness “. Affected by a rare genetic disease which obliges her to move around in a wheelchair, she has been asking, since the beginning of her mandate last June, to benefit from the means to be able to correctly fulfill her role as an elected official, “on an equal footing” with his able-bodied colleagues.
8,000 euros additional costs
If her chair handicaps her for her movements, it is a difficulty other than the most constraint in the preparation of the municipal councils and her interventions: her cognitive disorders. The 50-year-old suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome. “It’s an invisible handicap, but it causes difficulties, especially in concentration. I therefore take four times as long to write, read or analyze a document. When we receive the deliberations of a municipal council five days earlier, I need the help of someone to prepare and then take part in the council. Many elected officials exempt themselves from this work, do not read anything. This is not my conception of the exercise of a municipal mandate, ”argues Odile Maurin.
To do this work, she therefore had to hire an assistant and pay nearly 8,000 euros in additional costs out of her own money. She deduces that in the name of the law of February 2005, these expenses of function would be supported by the city and the metropolis in the name of the principle of “disability compensation”. But she was refused most of these costs, the Capitole only reimbursed her 1,800 euros of the total sum.
Ceilings and law respected, depending on the community
After a mediation proposal last year, the elected opposition member saw a refusal from the two communities, which indicated that they could not go beyond the ceilings provided for by the texts. . This includes, as part of its municipal mandate, “reimbursements for specific travel, support and technical assistance costs incurred by elected officials with disabilities when they attend meetings taking place outside of the municipality and the reimbursement of these same costs to take part in the sessions taking place in the municipality”, argues the Capitol.
As for the one she exercises within Toulouse Métropole, “reimbursements of these same expenses are also possible within the limit of an identical ceiling, but they only apply in the event that the meetings concerned take place in a municipality other than that from which the elected official comes, ”indicates the community. A point that the metropolis was confirmed by the prefect, specifying that “Toulouse Métropole therefore reimburses the costs of Mrs. Maurin only in the case provided for by law. The community may in no case incur expenditure of public money outside the regulatory framework”.
“This answer is that of a restrictive interpretation of the text of the law. Articles of the general code of local authorities indicate the specific costs of elected officials with disabilities must allow them to take part in the meetings, and to take part it is necessary to prepare this advice well, “says David Nabet-Martin, one of the lawyers of Odile Maurin, who decided to bring the case before the administrative court. “In other cities like Bordeaux or Grenoble, they had the intelligence to bring this text to life, you have to stop putting your hand on your heart and not in your pocket”, continues another defender of the elected official. opposition, Christophe Lèguevaques. A case that should be heard in the coming weeks.