Constitution | The chairman of the Constitutional Law Committee criticized the government for the delay

The Constitutional Committee chairman Heikki Vestman (kok) criticizes the government for not taking into account possible constitutional amendment needs, which the Constitutional Committee has repeatedly pointed out.

“Such a report should finally be made and it is necessary,” Vestman emphasizes.

The report referred to by Vestman would concern the tenth article of the constitution regarding the protection of private life.

Vestman’s criticism also applies to previous governments. For the first time, the Constitutional Law Committee has stated the need for an investigation in 2016. Since then, the Constitutional Law Committee has urged the government to start the investigation several times, including this during the reign twice.

“The committee emphatically reiterates that it considers the investigation of the need for changes in the limitation clauses of Article 10 of the Constitution to be necessary. Needs for change must be assessed taking into account, among other things, the changed security situation, new forms of serious crime and the technological development that has taken place,” states the Constitutional Law Committee given at the beginning of May in a statement regarding the Border Patrol Act.

Where from is it really about the need for clarification?

The task of the Constitutional Law Committee is to monitor, for example, the constitutionality of the government’s legislative proposals and their relationship with international human rights treaties.

If problems related to the constitution arise in connection with the consideration of legal proposals, the committee can point out the need for clarification to the government. However, the task of the committee is not to directly take a position on whether the constitution should be amended, or if it should be, how.

When the Constitutional Law Committee first pointed out the problematic nature of the tenth section in 2016, the need for clarification was raised regarding the protection of domestic peace and its relationship to EU law. In practice, the wording of the section in question is so strict that the Constitutional Law Committee has since had to part with its exact wording based on EU law.

The tenth section was last amended in 2018 in the enactment of intelligence laws in connection with, but a more extensive explanation was left for later at that time. The need for change has so far been clarified in the Ministry of Justice in 2020 in the preliminary examinationbut no constitutional amendment measures were taken based on it.

Later other challenges have also been identified in the section and its application.

In this election period, the Constitutional Law Committee has had to consider whether the article enables the Border Guard’s new radio-technical monitoring or the legislation promoted by the European Commission, which aims to combat sexual violence against children online, for example.

“It is telling that the constitution still talks about the secret of the letter. It tells about how the point in question is regulated in a different society. We have to ask whether the section enacted from the 90s has provisions for, for example, the development of internet messaging,” says Vestman.

Amending the constitution has been deliberately made slow and difficult. Vestman emphasizes that, in principle, changes should be treated with restraint. Evaluating the changes requires extensive discussion.

Still: the longer the government’s investigation drags on, the greater the danger that some necessary new legislation cannot be enacted, Vestman points out. In such a situation, it would be too late to find out.

Is there already a certain frustration in the Constitutional Law Committee’s statements when the matter has not progressed?

“Yes, when you have to repeat what was already said again and rush it, it means of course that the Constitutional Law Committee has seen the need for such a remark,” Vestman formulates his answer.

Ministry of Justice Head of Unit Timo Makkonen says that the matter has been taken into account by the Ministry of Justice.

“We intend to order an external report on the subject, because it is a fairly broad entity. The section is subject to several different inspection needs, in which both international agreements and EU legislation must be taken into account, and the boundary conditions set by them must be evaluated,” says Makkonen.

“On the basis of that, a political decision will be made on whether to launch such a constitutional review project.”

According to Makkonen, the schedule for the external investigation has not been finalized yet, but it is planned to launch a request for tenders on the subject in the near future.

“The process of selecting the author of the report takes its own time, but the matter is pending.”

Constitution the tenth article is not the only thing that the Constitutional Law Committee has commented on in recent years.

The committee has identified possible needs for changes in the church law, the position of the highest legality supervisors and the fact that regional elections are not mentioned at all in the constitution.

Also regarding Finland’s NATO membership in the report the committee stated that membership can have “significant indirect effects on power structures between state bodies”, which should be investigated.

The Constitutional Law Committee has not specifically asked to hurry up the investigation of these issues.

Others as regards the tenth article of the constitution, according to Makkonen, there are currently no active measures underway.

“These are all their own entities, which must be viewed as their own entities. The government program defines to a great extent what preparatory processes we have going on,” says Makkonen.

While the report on the tenth article of the constitution is mentioned in the government program, there is no mention of the others. Initiating investigations related to them would require a separate political decision on the subject.