Can a mayor postpone a wedding because of the danger of disturbing public order?

The mayor justifies the travel ban on the grounds that there may be significant public security disturbances during the celebration. It reports multiple offenses committed in comparable circumstances a few months earlier, during the marriage of the cousin of the future wife.

His decision to postpone the planned marriage to a later date follows tense exchanges with the national gendarmerie during a meeting in preparation for the ceremony, with the prospective brides vociferously protesting, and explicit threats, against the ban on movement set out in the decree. The mayor also reports, without imputing it to the future spouses, several arson attacks on vehicles, including his own, during the preparation period of the marriage.

The dissatisfied intending spouses are asking the administrative court’s interim relief judge to suspend the execution of this order and the decision to postpone the marriage, and to order the mayor to celebrate their marriage on the date and time originally scheduled. They consider the postponement to be a serious and manifestly unlawful attack on the freedom of movement and of marriage.

By order, the judge hearing the application for interim measures of the administrative court grants the application of the future spouses and suspends the execution of the order and the decision. On the other hand, it declares itself incompetent to require the mayor to solemnize the marriage on the date and time originally scheduled. The municipality then refers the matter to the Council of State for interim measures.

Can the Mayor postpone the marriage of Ms C and Mr. D if he considers that there is a risk of public disorder?

Service-public.fr replies:

The judge hearing the application for interim measures of the Council of State, in his decision of 1^er June 2024, upholds the request of the mayor and quashes the order of the administrative judge, noting that:

• the tense climate in which the mayor had to take his decision to postpone the marriage, since this decision has only temporary effects strictly necessary for the requirements of maintaining public order;

• even if the intending spouses signed and posted sureties for the “charter of good conduct during civil marriage ceremonies”, sufficiently serious risks to public order are proven.

It considers that the measures taken by the mayor are proportionate to the needs of public order and that even a one-off increase in the presence of the police, as proposed by the future spouses, is not capable of remedying them.

The mayor’s order and decision are therefore justified by the circumstances and do not seriously and manifestly unlawfully infringe on the freedom to come and go and the freedom to marry.

Mrs. C and Mr. D must therefore move closer to the municipality so that the latter can take all steps to ensure that their marriage can be celebrated under satisfactory conditions corresponding to the requirements of public policy.