REPORTS
Unjustified shortening of the public consultation period by the Ministry of Development – October 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 23:35 on 19/10/2023 the Ministry of Development posted a bill on the opengov.gr website for public consultation entitled, “Transposition of Directive (EU) 2021/2101 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 November 2021 amending Directive (EU) 2013/34 as regards the disclosure of income tax information by certain undertakings and branches (L 429) – Updating national legislation on companies’ disclosure obligations – Incorporation of Article 1 of Directive (EU) 2019/1151 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on the use of digital tools and procedures in the field of commercial law (L 186) as regards disqualified directors”.
The consultation was set to close at 8:00 on 01/11/2023, i.e. (almost) 13 days later. However, neither in the regulatory impact analysis accompanying the draft law during the consultation nor in the regulatory impact analysis accompanying the draft law when it was introduced for adoption (see Law 5066/2023) was any documentation (or even a reference) found as to why the public consultation process lasted less than 2 weeks. Finally, it should be noted that the report on the consultation has not been posted on the opengov.gr website.
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 Development submitted a bill for public consultation for a period of almost thirteen days, without giving any reasons for the shortening of the consultation period from the usual two weeks.
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