Guest pen|The Law Review Board, which was abolished in Finland in 1997, could be revived in order to strengthen the legitimacy of the legislative process.
So called the processing of the conversion law in the parliament gave rise to a heated debate on the constitutionality of the bills. Sweden has its own method for this assessment, which Finland tried to create in the past.
In Sweden, the Lagrådet, or legal council, evaluates whether the government’s bill is in accordance with the constitution and the legal order as a whole, and whether the regulations are compatible with EU law and the European Convention on Human Rights. The Council acts as the last link, the guarantee of the quality of key bills. The Law Council was a model for Finland’s legal inspection body established in 1959, whose activities were first watered down and finally stopped completely in 1997.
To the Constitution the roots of the leaning Swedish Law Council go back to the 18th century, it became an agency in 1909. The council consists of three judges working in the Supreme Court or the Supreme Administrative Court or who have recently retired from them. If the workload demands, there can be more than one of these three-person colleges at the same time – currently there are two of them. The Council of Law issues hundreds of statements every year.
The collegiate format ensures that the Legal Council’s decisions are based on versatile discussion and consideration. As a rule, the members of the Legislative Council are elected for one year at a time, and no member of the previous collegium is elected to the next assembly. The turnover avoids the fact that the personal views of the members do not make the statements one-sided in the long term.
Legal Council the assessments are not binding on the Swedish government, but in practice the government has rarely deviated from the legal council’s guidelines, hardly ever from the assessments regarding the constitutionality of the bills.
The members of the Legislative Council do not work as judges, so the council does not undermine the threefold division of government power. Committees dealing with bills in the Diet can acquire other legal expertise, for example by consulting legal scholars. The committees can also request detailed statements from the Legal Council.
“
The Law Council does not undermine the threefold division of state power.
The assessment of the Legal Council, made under official responsibility, provides a solid legal basis for the parliamentary hearing of the bills. Judges who have worked on preliminary rulings in the Supreme Court and the Supreme Administrative Court are the most familiar with the legal system as a whole, i.e. alongside the national law, EU legislation, the European Convention on Human Rights and other supranational norms.
In Sweden, the Law Council is seen as a guarantee that strengthens trust in the rule of law, that the analysis of legal issues related to bills is separated from political considerations – regardless of which parties are in government at any given time.
in Finland the opinions requested from the legal audit committee were supposed to strengthen the legal persuasiveness of the bills, in the same way as the Swedish legal council. However, the governments mostly left statements unsolicited. The ministries did the same, even if they had the opportunity to do so after the 1989 law change.
During its almost 40-year operation, the Legal Inspection Board issued only a hundred statements, approximately the same as the Swedish Legal Council in a year. Although the parliament tried in various ways to support the activities of the Law Inspection Board, the board was eventually abolished. The reasons given were the low number of statements and financial problems. The real reasons why the Law Inspection Board was not wanted to develop in accordance with its original purpose were left unsaid. Was it suspected that the board’s authoritative statements could limit the government’s opportunities to shape the legal elements of the bill to its political liking?
The discussion around the Conversion Act also showed that in modern Finland, a body like the Law Review Board could strengthen the legitimacy of the legislative process.
Matti Kuusimäki is a retired Attorney General. Olli Varila is a retired president of the Court of Appeal.
Guest pens are speeches by experts that have been selected by the editorial board of HS to be published. The opinions expressed in guest pens are the authors’ own views, not HS’s positions. Writing instructions: www.hs.fi/vieraskyna/.
#Guest #pen #institution #Swedish #Law #Council #Finland
