REPORTS
Unjustified shortening of the public consultation period by the Ministry of Health – March 2023
Articles 57 et seq. of law 4622/2019 contain provisions on the legislative procedure and the principles of good lawmaking. According to Article 61 of the above law, public consultation is to be carried out on legislative bills through the website www.opengov.gr and should last for two (2) weeks.
The consultation period may be shortened by up to one (1) week or extended for one (1) more week, for sufficiently documented reasons, which shall be stated in the regulatory impact analysis accompanying the regulation.
As the Handbook of Legislative Methodology states, public consultation “is not just a necessary formal procedure, but an essential stage of the legislative process” which serves the principles of good lawmaking, including democratic legitimacy and transparency (see pp. 13-14). At the same time, any shortening of the consultation period should take place “only in absolutely exceptional cases and for sufficiently documented reasons” (see p. 68).
At 22:20 on 24 February 2023, the Ministry of Health posted a bill entitled “Modernization of the law on organ donation and transplantation” to the opengov.gr website, putting it up for public consultation.
It was stipulated that the consultation period would end at 08:00 am on 1 March 2023, i.e. five (5) days later, which is less than the minimum of one week set by Article 61 of Law No. 4622/2019. It should be noted that neither the regulatory impact analysis accompanying the draft law during the consultation nor the regulatory impact analysis accompanying the draft law when it was introduced for adoption (see Law 5034/2023) contains any reference as to why this shortening of the public consultation period was deemed necessary.
Good lawmaking is a constitutional objective linked to the rule of law.
Articles 57 et seq. of Law 4622/2019 include rules related to the legislative process and good lawmaking, which are also detailed in the Manual of Legislative Methodology. These establish that bills should be subject to a public consultation period of 2 weeks, which may be shortened to one week only in absolutely exceptional cases, and for sufficiently documented reasons.
In this particular case, however, the Ministry of Health submitted a bill for public consultation for a period of only five days, without giving substantiated reasons for this shortening of the consultation period beyond the legally permissible minimum of seven days.
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