Education Academic Matters

Stage 2

Appeal to the Litigation Committee

The University’s Litigation Committee settles disputes between the University’s users and decision-making bodies on the basis of an adversarial procedure. It is composed of professors, students and members of the administrative, technical and financial staff of the University. It decides independently. It reviews contested decisions for legality and factual accuracy.

The competence of the Litigation Committee is limited to appeals against:

  1. Decisions taken under articles 32-37 and article 39 of the University Act.
  2. Decisions concerning disciplinary action.

An appeal to the Litigation Committee must be filed within one (1) month of notification of the decision being appealed, or within one (1) month of notification of the rejection of a non-contentious appeal against the original decision.

Appeals concerning a disciplinary sanction must, however, be filed within seven (7) days of notification of the decision being appealed.

The appeal has to be submitted by email to the Litigation Committee (commission.litiges@uni.lu) by using the form below and in one of the official languages of Luxembourg (French, German or Luxembourgish) or in English. Given that the applicable legal texts are written in French, the Litigation Committee strongly recommends using French. Apart from exceptional cases, the decision will be rendered in French.

The appeal must contain the following information:

  • Personal and contact details of the appellant: full name, student ID number (if available), (student) email address.
  • Information concerning the decision being appealed: date, form of notification, name of the person or the body who took the decision, study programme, nature and content of the decision.
  • Information about the grounds on which the decision is being contested.
  • Suitable evidence.

The Litigation Committee begins by examining the admissibility of the appeal. If the appeal is admissible, the Committee examines whether or not the contested decision complies with all the applicable rules at the University.

The litigation procedure is adversarial. The appeal is transmitted to the respondent, i.e. the body/person who took the contested decision. The Committee may ask the respondent to react with a written statement, which it transmits to the appellant.

If during the written procedure not all elements of the dispute can be clarified, the Litigation Committee may invite the two parties to a hearing. At the hearing, each of the two parties may be accompanied by a person of their choice (e.g. a lawyer), who may intervene in the discussion.

The members of the Committee decide in complete independence. The Litigation Committee either confirms the decision and rejects the appeal, or it partially or fully upholds the appeal, in which case it can either annul the decision (the author of the contested decision must take a new decision) or amend the decision (by replacing the contested decision with its own decision).

The appellant and the respondent are informed of the decision by email. If the appellant does not receive a response within one month of submission of the appeal, he or she must consider the appeal to be implicitly rejected.

Appellants can then contest the decision of the Litigation Committee by filing an appeal for annulment (recours en annulation) with the Luxembourg Administrative Tribunal (Tribunal administratif). This judicial appeal must be submitted within one (1) month of notification of the decision of the Litigation Committee.