REPORTS
An illegal amendment, irrelevant in content to the main bill, transfers dozens of National Intelligence Service employees
Aiming at the adoption of rules for good and transparent legislation that adheres to the rule of law, article 74 paragraph 5 of the Constitution and articles 87, 88 and 101, paragraph 5 of the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament stipulate that ministerial amendments to proposed bills must be submitted, at the latest, three days before the start of the debate in the Plenary or the relevant parliamentary committee, and prohibits amendments that are irrelevant to the main object of the bill.
Irrelevant amendments are prohibited as per Article 88 paragraph 3 of the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament, “amendments must be related to the main object and proposals of the bill.” This provision aims to focus the legislator’s attention on just one issue, because in this way public debate will be more substantial and focussed, but furthermore because the regulation of many different issues by one single bill inevitably leads to the fragmentation of legislation as well as cumbersome legislation that is not easy to apply.
However, these provisions prohibiting the bad legislative practice of irrelevant amendments were violated in the voting process of law 4873/2021, which was voted in on 14/12/2021.
The bill came from the Ministry of the Interior and was entitled, “the protection of volunteering, enhancement of civil society actions, tax incentives for the enhancement of actions in the public interest by civil society, and other provisions.” The Ministry of Citizen Protection submitted, at 21:30, on Friday, December 10, an amendment unrelated to the main object of the bill, which in fact regulated, again in violation of good legislative practices, many different issues, such as the participation of the Hellenic Police (ELAS) in the European Border and Coast Guard Standing Corps, the settlement and payment of expenses of the General Secretariat for Anti-Crime Policy, the preparation of balance sheets of the Welfare Fund for the Employees of the Security Forces and the election of bodies and representatives of the trade unions of the Hellenic Police Force.
It follows from the above that instead of the amendment regulating an issue related to the main object of the bill, it introduced regulations that were irrelevant both to the draft law and to each other.
One of these irrelevant issues was the transfer of about 100 employees of the National Intelligence Service to the police force. This provoked strong reactions in the public sphere and the media. According to trade unionists from the National Intelligence Service Workers’ Association, cited by the newspaper Efimerida ton Syntakton, the aim of the amendment was to “dismiss from the service executives with a different political orientation from the government.”
In a state governed by the rule of law, ministers must table amendments in accordance with the rules and good legislative practices provided for in the Constitution and the Rules of Procedure of Parliament.
However, in this case, the government and specifically the Ministry of Citizen Protection violated the relevant legislation, submitting an illegal amendment to Parliament, as it was irrelevant to the main object of the bill.
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