Dissertation committee:
Σπυρίδων Βλαχόπουλος, Καθηγητής, Νομική Σχολή ΕΚΠΑ
Πατρίνα Παπαρρηγοπούλου, Καθηγήτρια, Νομική Σχολή ΕΚΠΑ
Αικατερίνη Ηλιάδου, Αναπληρώτρια Καθηγήτρια, Νομική Σχολή ΕΚΠΑ
Βασίλειος Κονδύλης, Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής, Νομική Σχολή ΕΚΠΑ
Ανδρέας Τσουρουφλής, Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής, Νομική Σχολή ΕΚΠΑ
Νικόλαος Σημαντήρας, Επίκουρος Καθηγητής, Νομική Σχολή ΕΚΠΑ
Βασιλική Χρήστου, Επίκουρη Καθηγήτρια, Νομική Σχολή ΕΚΠΑ
Summary:
During the economic crisis in Greece, the implementation of the rules of good legislation was incompatible with the need to immediately respond to the "memorandum" obligations of the country since the latter required rapid legislation procedures and, indeed, applied even simultaneously in various areas of public policy. That is why the respective Greek Governments, in the absence of a constitutional instrument to establish "law of necessity" that would allow a comprehensive response to the crisis, resorted to a series of "legislative acts of necessity" to save the Greek economy from the risk of collapse.
The main ones were the frequent lawmaking through acts of legislative content, the frequent recourse to summary lawmaking procedures, the systematic proposal of irrelevant and sometimes overdue amendments, the circumvention of the principle of coherence of bills, and the infringement of the principle of legislative technique according to which the bills must be divided into individual articles.
These legislative acts caused damage to other interests deemed necessary to "be sacrificed" as inferior in value. The first of them was the smooth functioning of parliamentary democracy, as in several cases of memorandum bills, the deputies were essentially deprived of their right to study adequately, control, discuss and process at the convenience of time the proposed regulations, to document their position on them and to differentiate their vote on the individual provisions. The second interest that was "sacrificed" was the quality of legislation, as these acts became the means to produce legislation with reduced consistency (in terms of content) and coherence (in terms of form), one that was obscure, malformed, constantly changing, difficult to access, one that caused legal uncertainty, but also of reduced essential democratic legitimization.
The frequency with which these emergency acts were implemented and the degree of their intensity depended on the pressure exerted by the "governance under memoranda". As the pressure of the latter increased, the Governments sidestepped the principles and procedures of good legislation, degrading the quality of legislation and the smooth functioning of parliamentary democracy. The situation was exacerbated by the "unnecessary" emergency legislative acts carried out by the Greek Governments, especially during the 15th Parliamentary Period, over which the most frequent and intense excesses of the necessary measure were observed.
During the same period, after all, the repeated violations of the rules of legislation and the excesses of the necessary measure in the "legislative acts of necessity" created an "institutional path" of deviations from the legislative order (as a path of "governmental convenience"), which, in the absence of an appropriate mechanism of control or institutional counterweight, gradually led the legislative production to a more general detuning, the "repercussions" of which became evident during the 15th Parliamentary Period.
As a result, from the relevant comparisons, the 15th Parliamentary Period turned out to be the worst in terms of legislation. It was the period with the largest in scope, the most divergent in content, and the least rationally structured laws. In addition, it featured the most "legislative acts of necessity", the lowest rate of public consultations, an increased number of enabling provisions for the issuance of subordinate regulatory decisions, and a meagre percentage of "pure" national parliamentary production. However, the "bad", centralized way of legislation of the period proved effective, as it allowed the Government to operate with speed and flexibility to fulfill the memorandum prerequisites and handle the crisis as well.
On the contrary, the best period in terms of legislation turned out to be the 13th Parliamentary Period under the Prime Ministership of G. Papandreou, as the laws passed at that time were smaller in scope and presented greater consistency than the other periods, the legislative procedures were more faithfully observed, while at the same time the "legislative acts of necessity" were also limited.
The 16th Parliamentary Period can be characterized as the period of the hastiest legislation as the average time of pre-parliamentary and parliamentary procedures fell almost in half, while the percentage of bills passed by the urgent procedure was significantly higher than in other memorandum periods. At the same time, it was the period with the most significant percentage of "pure" national legislative production, the highest rates of parliamentary tensions, and with a parallel tendency to regulate more issues with merged legislative initiatives.
Finally, the 13th Parliamentary Period under the Prime Ministership of L. Papadimos was a short, transitional period which, owing to the emergency legislative acts required for the signing and implementation of the second Memorandum, functioned as a precursor to the phenomena of bad legislation that followed. It was the period with the most enabling provisions per law for the issuance of subordinate regulatory decisions, a fairly high rate of recourse to summary procedures, and an increased number of provisions unrelated to the main theme of the bills.
A comparison of the primary laws of the economic crisis with the laws of a period of "normality" showed that the laws in times of crisis were passed more hastily, included a larger volume of regulations, were less consistent in their content, included more empowering provisions for the issuance of subordinate regulatory decisions, and were discussed in a more tense atmosphere.
In conclusion, during the economic crisis, the volume of regulations increased, the role of Parliament was downgraded, and haste worked to the detriment of legislative quality as a result of the circumvention of the rules of good lawmaking in the context of the "legislative acts of necessity" required to respond to the memorandum obligations consistently. The passage of a Good Lawmaking Act at the heart of the memorandum period contributed to an increase in the percentage of bills that were accompanied by a Regulatory Impact Analysis but still failed to stem the chaotic memorandum regulatory deluge that followed its passage.
