Kehysrihi | The ministry would like to enshrine surgery proposals in law – Professor: Problematic

Ministries darken their proposals for the frame grab. Two ministries refused to hand over to STT the proposals they had prepared for the spring framework competition.

Kehysriihi is an annual meeting where the state economy is planned for years ahead. Decisions on adjustments worth several billion euros are expected in the framework crisis starting on Monday. In practice, therefore, there are cuts, tax increases or both.

The proposals of the ministries have possibly dealt with cutting social and health services, pensions and various subsidies. When there is no information on the options offered by the ministries to politicians, the public debate is conducted on the basis of leaked figures and information selected by the ministries.

STT asked both the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health (STM) for documents that have been submitted in connection with the government's austerity decisions. The requests concerned both MPs Matias Marttinen documents handed over to the working group led by (kok) and, in the case of STM, also documents handed over to the Ministry of Finance.

However, the ministries refused to hand them over. Professor of Public Law Tomi Voutilainen The University of Eastern Finland considers the situation problematic.

Publicity Act are currently being renovated. The report of the working group preparing the reform contains many proposals in favor of publicity, but the proposals also include limiting the publicity of the preparation of the public finance plan.

It is reported from the Ministry of Finance that the working group made the entry on the proposal of the ministry. In practice, the law would therefore tighten the publicity of the proposals made by the ministries during the framework scramble, because the public finance plan is discussed in the framework scramble.

At the moment, there are no separate provisions in the law for the public release of documents relating to the public finance plan. In the future, the public release of these documents would also be regulated separately in the law in a similar way to the preparation documents of the state budget proposal.

The Ministry of Finance justifies the matter by making the legislation similar.

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Public law professor Tomi Voutilainen considers the situation problematic.

Voutilainen sees problems in the proposal of the report. According to him, no essential reason required by the constitution has been presented in the justifications, due to which the publicity of the preparation would be limited.

He also criticized it in his statement on the working group's report together with a university lecturer Matti Muukkonen with.

Voutilainen and Muukkonen wrote in their statement that they think it is special that the preparatory work carried out in the government ministries, which is subject to public interest and social discussion in the preparation phase, is being tried to be narrowed down in the proposed way.

“The preparation of the public finance plan is an emphatically political process, which must be able to be discussed in public on the basis of a sufficient knowledge base already in the preparation phase. For this reason, without compelling reasons, the proposed addition is unconstitutional.”

According to Voutilainen and Muukkonen, the fact that the ministries' proposals are discussed or even criticized during the preparation phase is a healthy use of freedom of speech in a democratic society. In addition, the discussion may raise new perspectives on the preparation of public finances or grievances with the information base produced by the ministries.

Since it is only a report, there is no certainty whether the matter will be recorded in law. The round of comments on the Swedish version of the report is still in progress, and after that the progress of things is a political decision.

of STT this spring, when asking for preparatory documents for the framework crisis, the Ministry of Finance replied that the documents would be public no later than when the Government makes a decision on the matter. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, on the other hand, justified the refusal by saying that it has not submitted official savings proposals to the Ministry of Finance or Marttinen's group during the spring. Instead, together with the Ministry of Finance, the ministry has “examined the effects of various measures”. Therefore STM also considers that the documents will become public only after the Government's decision.

According to Professor Voutilainen, there is no statutory and factual basis for not providing information.

Voutilainen justifies the matter with the fact that the Government Council is not a single authority, but consists of ministries and the General Session of the Government Council. The Publicity Act has adopted a strong principle of separation of authorities, the purpose of which, according to the justification of the law, is specifically to promote the publicity of the preparation.

When applying the law, the authorities are therefore independent of each other, Voutilainen assessed in an email to STT.

“This is especially important in terms of the publicity of the preparation. For example, statements, initiatives and other pleadings submitted by an authority to another authority usually become public immediately after they have been signed, unless it is a document that is regulated to be kept secret. In practice, that provision means that publicity begins no later than when the document has been sent, if no signature is done,” he says.

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According to Voutilainen, there is no statutory and factual basis for not providing information.

Voutilainen also estimates that the paper submitted by STM to the Ministry of Finance is public. The document is public on the basis of two justifications: either because the document has been completed and signed and is therefore public, or because the report formed by an independent entity is ready for its purpose.

Since the Ministry of Finance has asked for proposals and STM has given them, the paper is ready when the Ministry of Finance has received it.

“In the ministry that receives the documents, the time of the beginning of publicity is decided on the basis of the Publicity Act on receipt of the document.”

STT also asked a number of ministries for the same papers in 2022. Even then, the requests were denied.