One District Commissioner For The Whole Country Proposed

Minister of Justice Jón Gunnarsson is reportedly considering submitting a bill that would, if passed, reduce the number of district commissioners from nine to just one, Fréttablaðið reports.

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Anyone who has had to file for a residence permit, get married, or conduct any kind of official business in Iceland is likely familiar with having to go to the district commissioner, or in Icelandic, sýslumaðurinn. There is one district commissioner for each of Iceland’s administrative districts.

While Jón is not proposing combining all of Iceland’s districts into one, he does believe that given the ready availability of electronic communication, that it would make more sense to have one district commissioner.

It is unknown what would become of the other eight commissioners if the bill is passed into law, but Jónas B. Guðmundsson, the director of the Association of District Commissioners, speculates that they may become department managers of their respective districts.

All that aside, this bill will likely not be submitted until the autumn session, and will even then have to go through a ministerial workrgroup taking suggestions from related organisations and the general public before it will see the light of day.