Eastern border | The “Conversion Act” will be voted on next week in parliament in a way that was not even needed for joining NATO

At this hour from July, MPs are usually already on vacation, but in the week starting now, they should be able to stay accurate. They have extraordinary button pressing tasks ahead of them.

The so-called conversion law, i.e. “Government’s proposal for a law on temporary measures to combat instrumentalized immigration” will come to the votes of the plenary sessions of the parliament.

The law stipulates that applying for international protection at the Finnish border can be temporarily suspended and those who come to the border can be turned away without the right to appeal in the courts.

The votes will probably be held on Tuesday and Friday.

In Friday’s vote, a five-sixths majority will be required, when attempts are made to declare the law enacted in the legislative procedure of the constitution as urgent.

Such a procedure is rare.

There have been a total of seven declarations as urgent by a five-sixth majority in the entire 2000s, and only one in the 2010s and 2020s.

Even Finland’s accession to NATO and the DCA agreement with the United States did not require such a large majority. Two thirds of the votes in the hall were enough to approve these international obligations.

“Translation Act” is a so-called exception law: it departs from the constitution without changing the constitution itself.

The Constitutional Committee has stated that the proposed law is in conflict with, for example, the absolute prohibition of returns.

The Finnish constitution states that “the public authority must secure the fulfillment of fundamental rights and human rights”.

Section 21, on the other hand, guarantees everyone’s right to have “a decision regarding their rights and obligations submitted to a court or other independent judicial body”.

In the freshest in his statement the Constitutional Law Committee admits a conflict with Article 21 of the Constitution.

“Assuming the proposed regulation as a whole, it does not meet the requirements for an effective legal protection procedure in Section 21 of the Constitution and in international human rights obligations, which is especially emphasized by the proposed prohibition of appeals in subsection 5,” the committee says.

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The last time the five-sixths majority was used was in October 2018. That’s when the constitution itself was changed.

Because the exception law indirectly interferes with the Constitution, it must be regulated in the constitutional law-enacting procedure in accordance with Article 73 of the Constitution.

Usually it requires two parliaments: One parliament leaves the bill to rest with a two-thirds majority. After the next election, the parliament approves the law unchanged again with a two-thirds majority.

However, Article 73 allows for haste. A law approved by a two-thirds majority can be brought into force as an emergency if the urgency is supported by five-sixths of the votes cast.

That’s what the government is trying to do now. The government thinks that, despite a peaceful summer, Finland cannot know when Russia wants to organize a large number of people at the border. The government considers this threat so great that a special law is necessary.

Last a five-sixths majority was used in October 2018.

Then the constitution itself was changed. In the background were the needs of intelligence. Because of them, a provision on limiting the secrecy of the message was added to the constitution.

This made it possible to break the secrecy of messages, for example in the fight against a crime endangering the safety of society or in military intelligence.

At the time, there was a broad consensus on changing the constitution, but the Left Alliance was against rushing. A five-sixth majority was found when the Social Democrats also considered the issue urgent.

Their speech was given by a Member of Parliament Mika Kari (sd).

“Democracy must also be able to defend itself. Citizens’ basic rights and national security needs can be combined,” he reasoned.

MPs from the Left Alliance and Rkp voted against urgency Eva Biaudet. The votes were split 178–13.

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An interesting predecessor for next week can be found from 2006.

Next to find an example, you have to go back to 2009 and 2008, when the Åland Self-Government Act was amended with three government proposals.

The changes were related to consumer advice and securing Åland’s position in EC Court proceedings.

However, the urgency required a five-sixths majority, because Åland’s self-government is regulated in the legislative procedure of the constitution.

Next week’s an interesting predecessor can be found in 2006, when the parliament decided on the law on military crisis management.

At that time too, the topic concerned security and it was an exception law.

The law stipulated that Finland can also participate abroad in crisis management that has not been authorized by the UN Security Council.

The law raised suspicions in the hall. Several representatives were also worried that Finns would be sent to the Congo to shoot child soldiers. Time pressure was created by Finland’s desire to participate in the activities of the EU standby forces.

Declaring it urgent would have required a five-sixths majority, but it was decided unanimously without a vote. The content itself was voted on and the vote was split 164–9.

The Christian Democrats, the Basic Finns and part of the Left Alliance voted against. The future foreign minister was also among the voters against Timo Soini (p.s.).

In addition According to the information service of the Parliament’s library, there are two more examples of laws that required a five-sixths majority from the 2000s: the 2001 motion on experimenting with youth punishment and the 2002 motion on the Financial Supervision Act.

There was no need to vote for urgency in either of them. There was also no vote on the changes to the law concerning Åland.

Thus, the strictest five-sixths decision of the 2000s was the 2018 vote on the constitutionality of message secrecy, where 13 representatives voted against urgency.

Now under consideration In the “conversion law”, there will probably be more than 13 votes against. The Green Party and the Left Alliance have said they oppose the law, and they have a total of 24 MPs.

In addition, there are some people who vote against or abstain within the Sdp and possibly also in the Rkp.

If 34 or more MPs oppose the urgency, it will not be accepted. Even a smaller number of MPs is enough to counter the urgency if all the supporters are not present.

The majority is calculated from the votes cast. An empty vote is not counted as a given vote.