ABSTRACT
Introduction A recent study of local government in Europe found that “the fundamental norms of local self-government are usually laid down in the constitution.”1 The study examined 13 nations belonging to the European Union and concluded that “in all the analysed Member States local autonomy is entrenched in the constitution (or solidly embedded in the constitutional tradition).”2 Of the countries studied, only one did not explicitly address local government in its national constitution, and that was the United Kingdom, which does not have a written national constitution. In the other EU states examined, local government was the “subject of detailed constitutional regulation,” frequently including attention to local responsibilities, local finance, the internal organization of local governments, and “fundamental aspects of their relationship with other tiers of government.”3 In many countries it appears that constitutional attention to local self-government has gone hand in hand with constitutionalism itself, as several nations made express commitments to local autonomy in the first democratic constitutions they adopted as they emerged from fascism, dictatorship, or communism.4 Indeed, article 2 of the European Charter of Local Self-Government, which has been ratified by all 47 of the member states of the Council of Europe,5 expressly provides that “the principle of local self-government shall be recognized in domestic legislation, and where practicable in the constitution.”6
