Right to be heard

The Commissioner has no vote in any body. It is heard by right before the Assembly, before its committees, before the National Planning Congress at every stage of the planning cycle, and before the councils of the territories.

Article 257(2): the Commissioner is heard by right before the Assembly, before its committees, before the National Planning Congress at every stage of the cycle of Article 97, and before the councils of the territories.

The six stages of the planning cycle

The plan runs through six stages, and the Commissioner is heard at each of them.

Stage	What happens	What the Commissioner says there
(a) Registration of needs	Declarations of need and the statements of the workplace, user and neighbourhood assemblies	Nothing. Needs are declared by the residents holding them.
(b) Provisional balances	The Secretariat computes and publishes deficits, surpluses and variants	Whether the variants carry their long-horizon consequences, and whether any variant was dropped before publication.
(c) Rounds of negotiation	No fewer than three rounds, each concluding only after objections have been answered in writing	The substance of each objection, at the stage where a variant may still be amended.
(d) Reconciliation and adoption	Adoption of the plan	Whether an adverse opinion stands unanswered, which Article 258(2) then records.
(e) Execution	In-year adjustment	Whether an in-year adjustment has moved a cost beyond the horizon of the plan.
(f) Public account	Examined by the assemblies that furnished the inputs	What the period actually transferred, against what it said it would.

Before the Assembly

Heard by right on any bill and in any committee. A statement is attached to every bill under Article 134(1), so a computation and a published opinion are before the body when the office is heard. The annual report under Article 242(3) is debated in public sitting, and the debate is the one occasion each year on which the Assembly answers the Commissioner at length.

Before the councils of the territories

Twenty sub-regional councils, two regional councils, and every communal council. Spatial plans under Article 184 carry statements, and sealing decisions are taken at this level. The office appeared eleven times before territorial councils in the year to June 2026, most often about land.

Before the Ecological Budget Authority

The Commissioner participates in the procedure of Article 25(1) and submits evidence to the Authority. That procedure collects the reports of enterprises, the objections of worker and consumer assemblies, the monitoring records of communes and regions, the knowledge held by the inhabitants of a territory, and independent scientific work.

The Constitution publishes the draft budget for ninety days and requires a written public answer to every substantiated objection. Evidence from the Commissioner is received on the same terms as evidence from any other person or institution.

Appearances in the year to 30 June 2026

Body	Appearances	Written opinions lodged
Assembly, public sitting	4	7
Assembly committees	19	7
National Planning Congress	14	6
Councils of territories	11	9
Ecological Budget Authority	6	4