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Ad memoriam – André Molitor

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
AuthorFrancis Delpérée
Published date01 September 2005
Date01 September 2005
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/0020852305057975
Subject MatterArticles
/tmp/tmp-18ugwIBQSNHLBG/input International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Ad memoriam – André Molitor
Francis Delpérée
André Molitor died in Brussels on 4 June 2005. How else could this review react but
with a fitting immediate tribute?
I hope I will be forgiven for taking a personal perspective in this article. For me, as
for many others, André Molitor was a point of reference. So many of us never failed
to ask ourselves, when issues of public life and administration arose, whether large or
small, whether in relation to Belgium or to Europe or to the wider world, ’What has
he written about it, what is his reaction to this event or his response to that state-
ment?’ I would hasten to add, why should we change our attitude now?
Moreover, for me the image of André Molitor will forever be associated with that
of my father. Both were born in 1912. They were both ’top-ranking‘ civil servants in
the Belgian Government before it became a federation. They were both in charge of
a ministerial office at the same time, in 1958; one National Education, the other Social
Security. Above all, during their life they both bore acute witness — and not only
through their professional activities — to government and its administrative agencies.
They also showed, in their work and their activities, an attachment to the disciplines
of administrative science, in theory as well as in practice.
André Molitor had the opportunity to demonstrate his exceptional instinct for the
State when he became Chef de Cabinet, Principal Private Secretary, to the King of
Belgium in 1961. He really did ’shape King Baudouin‘, as I wrote in Le Soir on 6 June
2005. Both with him and for him, he established practice, if not theory, for the role of
the monarch which, at that time, was still not well-established. As we all know,
’the monarch rules, but does not govern‘, in the words of Adolphe Thiers. But in a
country as complex as Belgium, the monarch can and must, using the requisite
prudence, make a contribution to the smooth running of...

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