Good lawmaking is a constitutional objective linked to the rule of law. In order to ensure the purpose of good lawmaking, provisions of the Constitution (Article 74), the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament (Articles 85, 87, 88 and 101) and Law No. 4622/2019 (Articles 57-64) regulate issues relating to the legislative process and set certain rules to be followed when drafting, filing and voting on a bill or an amendment. Based on these general rules and Article 59(5) of Law No. 4622/2019, the Manual of Legislative Methodology was drafted in 2020, which analyses and specifies the rules to be followed in the legislative process. As stated in the aforementioned Manual (see, inter alia, pp. 18-19), the title of a bill (and subsequently of a law) is particularly important for the accessibility of the law and must succinctly convey the full scope of the legislation so that the addressees can immediately understand whether and to what extent the bill concerns them. At the same time, references to “other provisions”, which is common practice when the bill contains provisions unrelated to its main regulatory subject matter, should be avoided because it creates ambiguity and is therefore contrary to the principles of efficiency and accessibility as principles of good lawmaking.
Within the year 2023, 72 pieces of legislation were passed (Laws 5008/2022 to 5079/2023). Of these legislative texts 20 concerned the ratification of international conventions/agreements/memoranda of understanding/protocols) and 52 were laws.
Studying the titles of 49 of the above laws (i.e. not taking into account the 20 international conventions and Laws 5077, 5065 and 5064/2023 concerning the budget, accounts and balance sheet of the State, i.e. legislative acts for the preparation/voting of which more specific and/or different rules are followed), it was observed that:
These issues persisted in the final titles of thirty-six (36) of the laws passed by the Parliament.
You can see a summary of the laws passed in 2023, the titles they had (both when they were introduced for vote and after their passage), the link to Parliament’s website for each of them, their type (international convention or law) and whether or not they contained any of the above phrases in their titles HERE.
The frequent inclusion of phrases such as “and other provisions” in the titles of laws can only raise serious concerns as to whether the rules of good lawmaking are being followed during the legislative process. This is because the inclusion of such phrases in the title of a law is likely to indicate the existence of provisions within the law which are unrelated to the main subject matter of the law, a practice which is contrary to the principles of good lawmaking.
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