REPORTS
Unjustified shortening of the consultation period by the Ministry of Environment and Energy – February 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).
On 16-2-2023 at 13.00 the Ministry of Environment and Energy posted on the website opengov.gr the draft law “Renaming the Energy Regulatory Authority to the Waste, Energy and Water Regulatory Authority, expanding its scope with responsibilities for water services and urban waste management and strengthening water policy”, putting it to public consultation. The consultation would close on 27-2-2023, 11 days later.
However, the regulatory impact analysis accompanying the bill during consultation did not contain any reference to or justification for the shortening of the public consultation period, as required by law. The report on the public consultation process has also not been posted on the opengov.gr website.
The only reference to the issue of the consultation period is found in the regulatory impact analysis that accompanied the bill when it was introduced for adoption (see p. 58 and law 5037/2023 in general), and here the report refers to the impossibility of extending the consultation period due to time pressures regarding the transposition of EU Directives contained within the bill. This reference to the impossibility of an extension, however, does not sufficiently justify the decision to shorten the consultation period in the first place, especially given that the deadline for the transposition of Directives (EU) 2018/2001 and 2019/944 had already passed.
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 Environment and Energy submitted a bill for public consultation for a period of only eleven days, without giving any reasons for the shortening of the consultation period.
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