REPORTS
The unjustified shortening of the legislative public consultation period by the Ministry of Justice
According to Article 61, paragraphs 2, 3 & 4 of law 4622/2019, (Government Gazette A ‘133 / 07.08.2019), public consultation on legislative bills is to be conducted through the website opengov.gr and should last for two weeks, which only exceptionally can be shortened to one week for sufficiently substantiated reasons, which should be mentioned in the public consultation report. This report is prepared at the end of the consultation period and presents the comments and suggestions of those who participated in the consultation and documents whether or not they were incorporated into the final provisions. The report forms part of the final Regulatory Impact Analysis, which is also posted on the public consultation website.
However, in this case the Ministry of Justice did not comply with the legal provisions for public consultation and good legislative practices, failing to state on the website opengov.gr the “sufficiently documented reasons” for the shortened period of consultation.
It is noted that the public consultation report has not been posted on the opengov.gr website, and that neither in the regulatory impact analysis accompanying the draft law during the consultation nor in the regulatory impact analysis accompanying the bill’s introduction to parliament for voting, was any reason given for the shortened public consultation process.
Good legislation is a constitutional objective and is linked to the principle of the rule of law.
Law 4622/2019 (articles 57 et seq.) includes rules related to the law-making process and good law-making, which are also set out in the Legislative Methodology Manual. The public consultation period lasts 2 weeks and any shortening of the said consultation period should only take place in absolutely exceptional cases and for sufficiently substantiated reasons.
In this particular case, however, the Ministry of Justice determined that the consultation period for this bill would only be (almost) 12 days, without giving any justification or reason why.
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