A. On April 28, 2021, the draft law, “Institutional framework of telework in the public sector” was submitted for consultation by the Ministry of the Interior. This plan consists of 20 articles, has a length of 9 pages and, as is clear from its title, concerns the regulation of teleworking issues in the public sector.
B. On June 1, 2021, the same bill was submitted to Parliament, now entitled “Institutional framework for teleworking, provisions for the human resources of the public sector and other regulations of the Ministry of the Interior.” The bill now consists of 27 articles, has a length of 14 pages and is divided into Part A (Teleworking in the Public Sector) and Part B (Provisions of Human Resources in the Public Sector, Macedonia-Thrace Sector of the Ministry of the Interior and Local Authorities).
In Part B of the draft (Articles 20-26) there are provisions related to performance evaluations of public sector staff; the secretarial support of the Secondary Disciplinary Council; the remuneration of local authority journalists; the public sector appointment of a relative of a deceased employee; the monitoring of disciplinary cases, and rental costs and incentives for employees of mountain and island regional authorities.
It seems, therefore, that the provisions of Part B deviate from the main object of the bill, which is none other than teleworking. In this way, however, the requirements of Article 74 of the Constitution and Article 85 of the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament, as analyzed and specified on pages 18, 19, 24, 77 of the Manual of Legislative Drafting Methodology (which require the bills not to contain irrelevant provisions) are ignored. Also, the principles of good legislation, as reflected in Article 58 of law 4622/2019, are violated.
This issue of deviation from the main object of the law becomes even clearer from the title that the bill now bears (“…. and other regulations of the Ministry of the Interior”). The fact that the regulations of Part B also concern issues related to the Ministry of the Interior does not seem to negate the problem that arises from the coexistence of issues so different from one another in the same bill. As mentioned on pages 18 and 19 of the Manual “… every bill has a main object and does not include provisions unrelated to it, pursuant to Article 74 paragraph 5 of the Constitution. Such provisions are not constitutionally acceptable and therefore not allowed by this Manual either – whether they are included in the body of the bill or take the form of amendments … The reference to “other provisions” which is common practice when the bill contains provisions unrelated to its main regulatory object must be avoided because it causes ambiguity, and a lack of clarity, and therefore contradicts the principles of efficiency and accessibility as principles of good legislation ”.
C. Just two days before the vote on the bill was due to take place, i.e. on June 8, 2021, 5 ministerial amendments were tabled. These amendments contain a total of 35 articles, with the length of the provisions being 30 pages. The issues they regulate are many and varied. However, the articles of the amendments are unrelated in subject to both the main bill, (teleworking) and to each other.
Special reference should be made at this point to amendment No. 918/97 / 8-6-2021 from the Ministry of the Interior. Initially, it is noted that this amendment could constitute a bill in itself, a fact which is made clear by the very form in which it has been tabled (Parts A and B, transitional provisions, etc.). The fact that it was nevertheless tabled as an amendment (thus avoiding the obligation for public consultation) in itself raises concerns. Furthermore, this amendment provides for changes in the method of conducting the competition for admission to the National School of Public Administration and Local Government (Ε.Σ.Δ.Δ.Α); changes that will affect the next entrance competition. Adverse reactions were lodged by all of the opposition parties (see pages 5, 7, 11, 13, 15, 19, 21, 28, 36, 41, 52, 61, 63 of the minutes of the Parliament and SYRIZA’s announcement.) This is because the amendment was considered to be contrary to the principles of good administration, to the legitimate expectations of the administration, to legal certainty, and the rule of law in general, while there are also doubts about it’s expediency. The government’s position on these issues (see, inter alia, pp. 19 and 49 of the Parliamentary minutes) does not, however, seem to give substantive answers.
In general, the extent of the amendments; the existence of multiple articles in each of them; and particularly their unrelated content, are elements that show that in this case the requirements of Article 74 of the Constitution and Articles 87, 88 and 101 of the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament, as they are analyzed on pages 4, 18, 63, 70-71, 77-78 of the Manual of Legislative Drafting Methodology, have been ignored. The above articles define the specific conditions under which an amendment should be introduced for voting, but also the content that it must have.
This fact did not go unnoticed during the meeting of the Plenary Session of the Parliament (see, among others, pages 4, 6, 13, 20, 61, 63 of the minutes of the Parliament). Particular reference was made to the fact that amendments were tabled at the last minute and constituted virtually entire bills, and that this undermines the broader concept of consultation both inside and outside Parliament and the rules for good legislation that the Government itself has introduced. Legislating in this way, it was pointed out, is essentially ‘bad legislation’, which makes the whole process unacceptable and unconstitutiona
D. This bill was finally passed on June 10, 2021. Law 4807/2021, which now has the title “Institutional framework of teleworking, provisions for human resources in the public sector and other urgent regulations,” contains 62 articles, of which 35 were added to the bill through amendments. The very title of the law, although changed for the third time, still contains the phrase “and other urgent regulations,” which is a typical example of how the principles of good legislation are violated by the law that was finally passed.
Despite the above violations of the rules of good legislation and mainly the irrelevance of the amendments, all ministerial amendments were therefore put to a vote by Parliament (see page 66 of the minutes of Parliament for the votes). The 4 parliamentary amendments that had been tabled during the sitting of the parliamentary session were rejected, 2 of these explicitly because they were both overdue and irrelevant (see statement by the Minister of the Interior on page 38 of the minutes).
The rules of good legislation and the principles of Article 58 of law 4622/2019, therefore, seem to have been violated in multiple ways by law 4807/2021. The blow to the rule of law in this case is evident at more than one level, whilst brevity allows this text to examine only a limited portion of these violations.
In a state governed by the rule of law, the government and the Parliament must produce laws in adherence to both the Constitution and the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament, as well as the other rules that have been established to guarantee and promote good and transparent legislative practices, especially when it comes to the government that has introduced most of these rules.
In this case, many of the rules and principles of good legislation have been violated, which is already evident from the title of the legislation. The bill that was put to consultation was less than half the length of the bill that was finally passed, and in its final form, law 4807/2021 regulates a large variety of issues.
The number of amendments tabled, the timetable with which they were submitted, but especially their varied content, exacerbated the problem and made non-compliance with the rules of good legislation very apparent.
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