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 14:25 on 7 March 2023, the Ministry of Immigration and Asylum posted a bill entitled “Immigration Code” on the website opengov.gr, for public consultation. The consultation was set to end at 10:00 on 14 March 2023, i.e. 7 (almost) days later.
However, neither in the regulatory impact analysis accompanying the bill during the consultation nor in the regulatory impact analysis accompanying the bill when it was introduced for adoption (see Law 5038/2023), was there any reference to a reason for the shortening of the process.
We also note that the public consultation report has not been posted on the opengov.gr website (as required by Law 4622/2019), despite the fact that it was the subject of intense public interest and yielded extensive comments from public interest organizations as well as citizens (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). The shortening of the consultation period for this extensive (180 articles) and important bill was also the subject of many comments during the public consultation (see the comments recorded on p. 49, 51, 56 and 68 of the regulatory impact analysis).
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 Immigration and Asylum shortened the consultation period for the draft Immigration Code to (almost) 7 days, without referencing any reason why this was deemed necessary.
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