Rights and Responsibilities for Parents in Luxembourg

Parental responsibilities

In general you have a reasonable duty to provide and care for your child, the law includes the charming french phrase ‘selon leur fortune’ or “according to their fortunes”: if you are a poor family then the expectations of what you must provide for your child are less, however if the child is in real hardship then the government can and will take responsibility for them.

Education is in the first place the responsibility of parents: if you do not enroll your child in a school, then you will be obliged to show your competence to educate them yourself. Standards of home education are not evaluated rigorously or frequently but they are tested at the outset of the home education programme and at intervals subsequently. If you do enroll your child in a school, but their care and education are not adequate, then you have a problem and the situation can quickly become stressful.

Neither teachers not parents are permitted to use corporal punishment, nobody may ever deliberately use violence towards their own children or any others. In practice, some political figures have publicly boasted of personally committing violence against minors as “teaching them a lesson”; the enforcement of this law depends on the status and influence of the person committing the offense, and possibly on the social or ethnic category of the victim. An example does exist of a teacher facing professional embarrassment after allegedly using racial abuse and striking a black-skinned child however the true story is at this point impossible to discover as the teacher’s version of events (and that repeated by the regional education director) differed from that of every witness present.

The perceived duty to protect your child from threats is often a driving force for parents to create severe problems for themselves and others. The law does not expect parents to police the wider community or personally confront individuals whom they suspect may pose a risk to their child. Parents remain responsible for their child’s welfare, but this does not give them immunity from civil or criminal liability if they assault, harass, threaten, libel, slander, defame or otherwise interfere with other people, especially not based on accusations which they may have heard from a neighbour, a teacher, or a child. Claims of parental protective instinct are not, by themselves, a legal defence. Any use of force or other extraordinary action would typically require a genuine and immediate threat, and the response would need to be reasonable and proportionate to the danger. If you believe your child is being bullied, abused, or otherwise mistreated, you should document the incidents and pursue appropriate legal remedies (see below). Depending on the circumstances, responsibility may potentially fall on the alleged aggressor, the aggressor’s parents, the school, or another party: the situation may be complicated however the good news is that legal aid is almost always granted when acting on behalf of children, so being smart, preserving your standing, and staying within the law should not cost you anything.

Parental rights to information

Luxembourg does not impose rigorous inspection on schools, or oblige them to report on standards and conditions in the school to parents, or oblige schools to spontaneously give evidence in support of any decisions that they take in relation to children. If you demand evidence of due process (or the lack of it) in decisions affecting your child then the schools may be obliged to provide it under administrative law (see below) although this will take months or years.

European regulations do allow parents to access any data which is stored electronically and is relevant to their child, relatively quickly. The CNPD handles requests to access data under the GDPR regulations, typically this results in a dossier being delivered within a matter of a few weeks. The school direction are aware of the GDPR request and typically fulfil it themselves on an ‘honor’ system such that the dossier delivered may seem to miss a lot of information however this is the only practical way to access information relevant to your child. Schools sometimes seek to excuse failure to deliver their full electronic records on the grounds that they do not administer all of the information services that they use, but rather that they are controlled centrally by the ministry of education. A simultaneous request to the ministry and to the school would therefore seem to be advisable.

Representation of parents

In theory the minister of education is a member of parliament elected by citizens, including by parents. This is not a highly representative democracy however, as only full citizens can vote, while many parents are residents but not citizens, and many more families are cross-border: therefore approximately 40-50% of children are from families unable to vote. Even with the vote, Luxembourg’s proportional representation system is designed to promote stability, therefore despite fluctuations in popularity of both the individual and his party, Luxembourg has (in 2026) the dubious distinction of Europe’s longest serving minister for education.

The national parents union is a second tier body formed from selected members of school parents committees. It has no formal powers but may influence the education ministry depending on the personalities and relationships involved.

Individual schools typically have a parents committee, this body has real but very limited formal powers. Parents in Luxembourg include a larger than usual demographic of top lawyers due to the presence of the European Court (on Kirchberg) as well as many interesting and highly influential people, so valuable advice and perspectives can be found through this body, but it has very little power to compel the attention of the school direction or drive any change in policy or practice. A significant role in of the parents’ committee is that a member of the committee does typically sit on the ‘conseil de discipline’, a decision making body which applies the more serious sanctions to children accused of disciplinary offences. Therefore the role of the parents’ committee in advocating for parents and children is small but real.

Legal Recourse

this section is a rough draft only

Access to legal recourse

Legal aid is almost always granted when requested on behalf of a child, otherwise it is means tested such that people of median or higher income (those not receiving rent support etc) are likely to be obliged to pay. Granting of legal aid may take up to one year, however it is typically granted retroactively, therefore if you are confident of receiving the aid you can approach a lawyer immediately.

Alternatively to approaching a lawyer, you can make a complaint directly to the police. If you can present a clear and simple case that your child has been harmed (pictures of an injury will help here) then it is probable that the police will address the matter and issue a warning or embark on a prosecution, as appropriate.

The further alternative of presenting a case to the ‘parquet’ (to the prosecutor) exists however you are strongly advised not to do this without legal advice. The parquet typically takes over one year to respond to cases, and they will certainly be discarded if not prepared to a high standard. There are a number of advisory and support services provided by the government for those cases where a child is in genuine difficulty which should be approached first, or at least considered while waiting for the parquet.

Potentially relevant Luxemburgish law

Education law in Luxembourg is extremely sparse and vague. There are some general provisions in the civil code which can be argued to apply in education, but very few specific obligations falling to schools.

Potentially relevant sections in the ‘code civile’ include articles 1382-1384:

1382 Tout fait quelconque de l’homme, qui cause à autrui un dommage, oblige celui par la faute duquel il est arrivé, à le réparer.

1383 Chacun est responsable du dommage qu’il a causé non seulement par son fait, mais encore par sa négligence ou par son imprudence.

1384.( L. du 27 juin 2018 ) On est responsable non seulement du dommage que l’on cause par son propre fait, mais encore de celui qui est causé par le fait des personnes dont on doit répondre….

In summary, people and collectives in Luxembourg are responsible for any damage or harm that they cause, either by deed or by negligence or carelessness. Further, and this may be interesting for schools, this principle applies when one is in charge of another. The example given is that a master is responsible for his apprentice, therefore it would seem for example if a child causes harm to another while under supervision by a teacher, the liability for that falls to the school. Seek professional advice before attempting to build a case, however.

EU Law

It is easy to confuse two separate bodies of EU law, both of which are relevant: ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights) is a Council of Europe treaty enforced by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, whereas the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (CFR/ECFR) is an EU constitutional document that binds EU institutions and Member States when they are implementing EU law. ECFR is not enforced directly, rather all enforcement of local (or international) laws should comply with it.

It is envisioned that local law should be exhausted before going to Strasbourg: it may be necessary therefore to seek redress locally even in a case which doesn’t have much hope in the local framework, and then move on the higher court only after failure.

Article 24 of the charter of fundamental rights has two provisions which are potentially very relevant to school situations:

1 Children shall have the right to such protection and care as is necessary for their well-being. They may express their views freely. Such views shall be taken into consideration on matters which concern them in accordance with their age and maturity.

2 In all actions relating to children, whether taken by public authorities or private institutions, the child’s best interests must be a primary consideration.

This seems promising, but the law allows various interpretations. On point 1, a school can say that they considered the child’s views, and decided to ignore them; likewise they can argue that the child’s well-being includes being treated in any way they see fit, to toughen that child up. On point 2, the language is slippery: the child’s best interests are a primary consideration (‘une considération primordiale’) not the primary consideration: the school can therefore argue that the child’s well-being was taken very seriously, but not as seriously as some other thing, and still be within the law.

Article 24 is therefore something which is nice to have in mind, but if searching for specific and enforceable law protecting your child then the European Convention on Human Rights might be more useful.

ECHR provions include article 14: Right to education:

2_1 Everyone has the right to education…

This is clearly applicable in the case that the school makes an unjust exclusion, or fails to operate such that it can claim to be “educating”.

3 Inhuman or degrading treatment…

Systematic humiliation and abuse of children, perhaps explained as creating a deterrent to others, comes under this. This is not specifically illegal in Luxembourg although some of the vaguer civil law might be appropriate in local courts. It might a good idea to have in mind that this is more clearly and specifically against the law at a European level.

6 Fair hearing…

If the school refuses to provide information (or refuses to hear it, or makes it up) in a disciplinary hearing then this is applicable. In the local system this could potentially be treated weakly as an “administrative offense” (a form of bookkeeping error).

13 Effective Remedy…

This clause is obscure but potentially the most powerful, as the best outcome under article 13 is to actually fix a systematic problem, rather than simply securing an apology and probably insignificant financial compensation for an individual injured child.

Article 13 says, in essence: “If you have a claim that a Convention right has been violated, there must be an effective remedy before a national authority.” Article 13 must be applied together with another Convention right: you must first show an arguable claim under Article 8, Article 14, etc. The remedy must be practical and effective, not theoretical. A state cannot defend itself merely by pointing to a complaint procedure that never works in practice. The remedy need not guarantee success. The Convention does not require that the parent wins, only that there is a genuine mechanism capable of examining the complaint and providing relief where appropriate. Many Luxembourgish services which purport to support parents actually act only to absorb their energy and resources: the ‘service médiation scolaire’ for example has no power to compel any action by schools or by the ministry, in theory it is a facilitator for communication but in practice serves no purpose other than to delay and divert. If some of the many parents to have been disappointed by the ‘médiation scolaire’ were to then attach article 13 claims to their case in Strasbourg that would be a service to all subsequent parents, compelling the government of Luxembourg to implement a more useful service for accountability in education.

14 Non discrimination…

Discrimination is already illegal under Luxembourgish law, however it may in practice not be addressed by the local courts, in which case Strasbourg is the next stop.

Above text is specifically not legal advice and is provided with no assurances.

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