Legislative flaws

Initiating, filing, discussing and finally passing a bill (law) is one of the tasks of a parliament among others. Anyone, whether a minister, or a parliament member - regardless whether belonging to the coalition or opposition, has the right of initiative, and this should be equally treated with a professional conscientiousness. Expertise of anyone (even specialists in the back offices) should ensure that all laws passed, would leave parliament in their best possible state. In countries where case law is current, the law will in due time be supplemented according to daily applicability if unexpected issues would occur that would in effect prove to be problematic due to international treaties (like the Human Rights' Charter, EU-legislation vis-à-vis national legislation and the like). Basically, coalition versus opposition should guarantee just laws.

Whether this concept is fully understood by all members within parliament - including their legal experts behind the scenes - is something that made me wonder in the last few weeks, as quite unhappy mishaps have occurred. Just to mention three recent examples:

Firstly, a bill came into effect, where - when applied according to the letter - single mothers would receive a monthly social benefit of over five thousand Euros. Mr Fico is priding himself for having the most-social government, but five thousand Euros is a bit over the top I reckon. Whether the formulation of certain passages has been done in a haste to meet a deadline or not, is irrelevant - texts of (new/amended) bills should carefully be studied, both by the initiator but especially by the opposition as well. Especially to catch unclarities or simple typo-errors, which could lead to absurd situations, like the one mentioned. None of the legal specialists ever took a calculator and figured out what the amendment contained. So why did this happen in the first place?

Secondly, the recent Patriotic Act, which caused a lot of dismay not only within Slovakia - only to be supported by some extremist fanatics - but also abroad, labelling Slovakia with North-Korean tendencies. A parallel, which is not too far fetched in my view. The absurdity of this law, has caused most opposition members not to participate in its voting. Why? The result was, that - despite its ludicrous principle - the bill made it with an astonishing majority through parliament, up to he point that even the initiator, the nationalist SNS members were overwhelmed with surprise. Nationalism is a dangerous yet effective tool to foul-mouth your opponent. Was it because of this, that hardly any opposition member dared to vote against? The electorate is fairly sensitive to such signals (even though absurd) and I must admit that even I am often shocked by the level of blind patriotic 19th-century style rhetoric among voters. Nevertheless, ignoring or willingly abstaining from voting this law, is a huge faux-pas. Now, when shedding bitter crocodile tears opposition should be aware of bearing the blame as well. 

The third example is of a bit more serious nature: On 9 March, the ruling party rushed a bill through parliament, dealing with information access regarding nuclear power plants. A few days earlier, the European Commission warned Slovakia that it fell short in respecting public interest in their PPP-projects, threatening to cut off EU funds. The issue was that public had hardly time to find out or respond to state-directed projects. The cabinet took it as a triviality and after modifying some legislation everything was back to business. Not so; on Tuesday the said bill would restrict public (or legal experts) to gain information access. A restriction that was even worse than the mentioned PPP-related issue. 

What was even more ironic - not only slipped it through the attention of the opposition, but the news came not from the Slovak media. Despite my continuous RSS feeds, where get all updates within a few seconds the moment they appear in the major newspapers/servers, it was a live broadcast by Olga Baková on the Czech network CT24 (which I happened to watch that moment by coincidence), that broke the news. For a while, according to Google, Slovak servers had no entry on that one. 

The said law is not just another slap in the face of the public by the arrogant Fico cronies, it is equally embarrassing, that we gained the first news from a foreign network. Not only will it again jeopardise further millions of EU support, that Slovakia direly needs, it is also a bad reflection of the whole parliamentary and journalistic professionalism. Call it legislative flaws or whatever, it indicates the poor state of democracy.Welcome to Slovakia.

MS

ADDENDUM: I must correct one detail; apparently, periodicals E-Trend and Hospodárske noviny did mention the passing of the information bill, yet only marginally and the heading of one of them was not conclusive enough for such a serious matter. Other newspapers mentioned it only post facto.

Initiating, filing, discussing and finally passing a bill (law) is one of the tasks of a parliament among others. Anyone, whether a minister, or a parliament member - regardless whether belonging to the coalition or opposition, has the right of initiative, and this should be equally treated with a professional conscientiousness. Expertise of anyone (even specialists in the back offices) should ensure that all laws passed, would leave parliament in their best possible state. In countries where case law is current, the law will in due time be supplemented according to daily applicability if unexpected issues would occur that would in effect prove to be problematic due to international treaties (like the Human Rights' Charter, EU-legislation vis-à-vis national legislation and the like). Basically, coalition versus opposition should guarantee just laws. Whether this concept is fully understood by all members within parliament - including their legal experts behind the scenes - is something that made me wonder in the last few weeks, as quite unhappy mishaps have occurred. Just to mention three recent examples: Firstly, a bill came into effect, where - when applied according to the letter - single mothers would receive a monthly social benefit of over five thousand Euros. Mr Fico is priding himself for having the most-social government, but five thousand Euros is a bit over the top I reckon. Whether the formulation of certain passages has been done in a haste to meet a deadline or not, is irrelevant - texts of (new/amended) bills should carefully be studied, both by the initiator but especially by the opposition as well. Especially to catch unclarities or simple typo-errors, which could lead to absurd situations, like the one mentioned. None of the legal specialists ever took a calculator and figured out what the amendment contained?So why did this happen. Secondly, the recent Patriotic Act, which caused a lot of dismay not only within Slovakia - only to be supported by some extremist fanatics - but also abroad, labelling Slovakia with North-Korean tendencies. A parallel, which is not too far fetched in my view. The absurdity of this law, has caused most opposition members not to participate in its voting. Why? The result was, that - despite its ludicrous principle - the bill made it with an astonishing majority through parliament, up to he point that even the initiator, the nationalist SNS members were overwhelmed with surprise. Nationalism is a dangerous yet effective tool to foul-mouth your opponent. Was it because of this, that hardly any opposition member dared to vote against? The electorate is fairly sensitive to such signals (even though absurd) and I must admit that even I am often shocked by the level of blind patriotic 19th-century style rhetoric among voters. Nevertheless, ignoring or willingly abstaining from voting this law, is a huge faux-pas. Now, when shedding bitter crocodile tears opposition should be aware of bearing the blame as well. The third example is of a bit more serious nature: On 9 March, the ruling party rushed a bill through parliament, dealing with information access regarding nuclear power plants. A few days earlier, the European Commission warned Slovakia that it fell short in respecting public interest in their PPP-projects, threatening to cut off EU funds. The issue was that public had hardly time to find out or respond to state-directed projects. The cabinet took it as a triviality and after modifying some legislation everything was back to business. Not so; on Tuesday the said bill would restrict public (or legal experts) to gain information access. A restriction that was even worse than the mentioned PPP-related issue. What was even more ironic - not only slipped it through the attention of the opposition, but the news came not from the Slovak media. Despite my continuous RSS feeds, where get all updates within a few seconds the moment they appear in the major newspapers/servers, it was a live broadcast by Olga Baková on the Czech network CT24 (which I happened to watch that moment by coincidence), that broke the news. For a while, according to Google, Slovak servers had no entry on that one. The said law is not just another slap in the face of the public by the arrogant Fico cronies, it is equally embarrassing, that we gained the first news from a foreign network. Not only will it again jeopardise further millions of EU support, that Slovakia direly needs, it is also a bad reflection of the whole parliamentary and journalistic professionalism. Call it legislative flaws or whatever, it indicates the poor state of democracy.Welcome to Slovakia. MS applied - i.e. supplemented - according to daily a applied - i.e. supplemented - according to daily a

Initiating, filing, discussing and finally passing a bill (law) is one of the tasks of a parliament among others. Anyone, whether a minister, or a parliament member - regardless whether belonging to the coalition or opposition, has the right of initiative, and this should be equally treated with a professional conscientiousness. Expertise of anyone (even specialists in the back offices) should ensure that all laws passed, would leave parliament in their best possible state. In countries where case law is current, the law will in due time be supplemented according to daily applicability if unexpected issues would occur that would in effect prove to be problematic due to international treaties (like the Human Rights' Charter, EU-legislation vis-à-vis national legislation and the like). Basically, coalition versus opposition should guarantee just laws. Whether this concept is fully understood by all members within parliament - including their legal experts behind the scenes - is something that made me wonder in the last few weeks, as quite unhappy mishaps have occurred. Just to mention three recent examples: Firstly, a bill came into effect, where - when applied according to the letter - single mothers would receive a monthly social benefit of over five thousand Euros. Mr Fico is priding himself for having the most-social government, but five thousand Euros is a bit over the top I reckon. Whether the formulation of certain passages has been done in a haste to meet a deadline or not, is irrelevant - texts of (new/amended) bills should carefully be studied, both by the initiator but especially by the opposition as well. Especially to catch unclarities or simple typo-errors, which could lead to absurd situations, like the one mentioned. None of the legal specialists ever took a calculator and figured out what the amendment contained?So why did this happen. Secondly, the recent Patriotic Act, which caused a lot of dismay not only within Slovakia - only to be supported by some extremist fanatics - but also abroad, labelling Slovakia with North-Korean tendencies. A parallel, which is not too far fetched in my view. The absurdity of this law, has caused most opposition members not to participate in its voting. Why? The result was, that - despite its ludicrous principle - the bill made it with an astonishing majority through parliament, up to he point that even the initiator, the nationalist SNS members were overwhelmed with surprise. Nationalism is a dangerous yet effective tool to foul-mouth your opponent. Was it because of this, that hardly any opposition member dared to vote against? The electorate is fairly sensitive to such signals (even though absurd) and I must admit that even I am often shocked by the level of blind patriotic 19th-century style rhetoric among voters. Nevertheless, ignoring or willingly abstaining from voting this law, is a huge faux-pas. Now, when shedding bitter crocodile tears opposition should be aware of bearing the blame as well. The third example is of a bit more serious nature: On 9 March, the ruling party rushed a bill through parliament, dealing with information access regarding nuclear power plants. A few days earlier, the European Commission warned Slovakia that it fell short in respecting public interest in their PPP-projects, threatening to cut off EU funds. The issue was that public had hardly time to find out or respond to state-directed projects. The cabinet took it as a triviality and after modifying some legislation everything was back to business. Not so; on Tuesday the said bill would restrict public (or legal experts) to gain information access. A restriction that was even worse than the mentioned PPP-related issue. What was even more ironic - not only slipped it through the attention of the opposition, but the news came not from the Slovak media. Despite my continuous RSS feeds, where get all updates within a few seconds the moment they appear in the major newspapers/servers, it was a live broadcast by Olga Baková on the Czech network CT24 (which I happened to watch that moment by coincidence), that broke the news. For a while, according to Google, Slovak servers had no entry on that one. The said law is not just another slap in the face of the public by the arrogant Fico cronies, it is equally embarrassing, that we gained the first news from a foreign network. Not only will it again jeopardise further millions of EU support, that Slovakia direly needs, it is also a bad reflection of the whole parliamentary and journalistic professionalism. Call it legislative flaws or whatever, it indicates the poor state of democracy.Welcome to Slovakia. MS applied - i.e. supplemented - according to daily a applied - i.e. supplemented - according to daily a