Roydis’ conclusion that in Greece we only need one law to enforce the rest has now become a proverb in everyday speech. The age-old pathology of our political system of laws passed for the sake of being passed and never enforced or poorly enforced is one of the causes of the evil demonization of the administration and the widespread lawlessness now firmly rooted in the social body.

There are thousands of laws that are not followed. Their adoption, which is part of the “let’s make it law and we’ll see” logic, has led to patchwork decisions. Unfortunately, there are dozens of examples.

For example, since the early 1990s, a law has been passed requiring prisoners to perform community service, that is, to offer their services for public purposes, instead of being in prison when they are convicted of minor crimes. has not been implemented. Until today, more than once, perhaps, count on the fingers of one hand, while since then and until now, in order to be finally implemented, over the past thirty years it has undergone several modifications, but not even managed to activate. Recently, the current Minister of Justice Konstantinos Tsiaras announced new changes and enactment of the law, as the institution had been inapplicable for more than thirty years.

But the judicial police, while remaining within the competence of the Ministry of Justice, has also been institutionalized on paper, also since the 1990s.

The most characteristic example of non-application is urban planning legislation.

To date, the relevant law has not entered into force and has not taken shape. Since then and until today, there have been consistent ministerial statements about the introduction of an institution important for the functioning of justice, without results, while during the time of the current minister, the issue has progressed a little, without the judicial police. still active.

On paper there are not only thousands of legislative provisions, but also key articles of the Constitution. Articles that protect important aspects of fundamental environmental rights or guarantee equality and consolidation of public administration in modern rather than clientelist terms. The article of the Constitution (24) protecting the environment and the dozens of laws that have been issued to serve it constitute a unit of unique illegality. In our country, few and optional provisions of all so-called urban planning legislation have been applied, while a vast violation of existing laws composes the image of all Greek cities, the residential frenzy of small settlements and the slovenliness of residential development, which, unfortunately, continues without end. Planning legislation is an extreme and real example of unenforceable legislation. But the same thing happens with other basic constitutional provisions. Constitutional norm 103 (introduced into the Constitution so as not to be violated) on the prohibition of converting fixed-term contracts into open-ended contracts was not only violated, but also “cannibalized”. Thousands of state contractors became permanent, especially before the crisis, in clear violation of the relevant constitutional norm, for the glory of those who proclaim constitutional legality and conscientious enforcement of laws.

As for the rules governing the organization of public administration, the picture is no better. Since the Kallikratis reform, provisions have been adopted requiring the formation of special committees to control all the actions of local governments, an institution of great practical and significant importance. More than 12 years have passed, and not a word has been said about the control of OTA, an area where corruption of all kinds is one of the worst causes of institutional damage, as well as losses.

27 laws only for dance schools

The inapplicability of laws is a side effect of unbridled polynomialism. The statistics from the earlier diaNEOsis study leave no room for complacency. Since the transition to the present day, 5,000 laws have been adopted! Every three days and one! These figures do not include ministerial decisions, which are published en masse. To fully understand that the legislative output is disproportionately large compared to the reality of solving problems, it is significant that 27 laws have been passed for dance schools alone, while every year – on average – since the post-colonial period, two bills have been submitted to the object of taxation. The government has made some efforts to stop the flow of legislation, with some results, but little in order to implement existing laws on paper. But, as experts say, in order for the adopted laws to be implemented, it is necessary to change a lot in political practice and in the functioning of public administration, as well as in society.

“Abuse” of the rule of law

Michalis Pikramenou

In a modern state, legislation regulates aspects of social coexistence and ways of exercising state power. The spread of legal norms has a double face: on the one hand, an extensive system of rules has been formulated that determines the rights and obligations of persons located on the territory, as well as the limits of state intervention. On the other hand, large legislative output, because it is driven by constant change, creates legal uncertainty.

Respect for the principles of good lawmaking, such as proportionality, necessity and efficiency, is primarily a political issue. That is, it is connected with the level of functioning of the political system and, in particular, with the form of party competition, with how society perceives the solution of social problems and, in general, with the ethos and style of power in the conditions when it has developed historically.

In legislative proceedings, stimuli have accumulated that are not eliminated by a law on good legislation, i.e. law on laws, but a paradigm shift by political parties, parliamentarians, governments and generally those who exercise power at the highest level. Decades of practice have shown that the rule of law is often “abused” in two ways: either it is used as a tool, or its implementation is hindered. Instrumentalization means that “photographic” arrangements are made for the benefit of specific individuals, groups, professionals, or businesses, often with modifications. Thus, the rule of law, although it is an expression of the general will, primarily a legalized body of the state, which is the parliament, turns into an instrument for satisfying individual interests. Non-application of the norm (with the conformity of the state and society in most cases) usually occurs in cases where obligations are imposed, the failure to comply with which entails sanctions. With the revocation method, the rule dissolves and the sanctions become pure writing.

A particular problem is the non-observance of the basic principle of good legislation, which is to evaluate, after a sufficient period of time, the results of the application of regulations. Thus, legislative changes are often introduced without documentary evidence of their need.

Instrumentalization, non-enforcement of the rule of law, and constant change in regulations constitute the deepest pathologies of legislation that are associated with the way the political system operates and with the prevailing societal notion that politics is identified with the satisfaction of individual interests, elements that eventually constantly feed off and degrade the quality of democracy.

*Mr. Michalis Pikramenos is Vice President of the Council of State and Professor at the AUTH School of Law.

Paradigm shift in legislation

Stilianou – Ioannis G. Kutnatzis

Polynomy and misogyny are often spoken of as perennial pathologies that undermine democracy, the rule of law, and hinder economic development. The state law on the state adopted a hybrid model of lawmaking, combining elements of the Anglo-Saxon and continental European legal orders. In the Office of the Prime Minister, the General Secretariat for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs is the guarantor of good legislation, and the Committee for the Assessment of the Quality of the Legislative Process, which involves not only lawyers, but also economists, and the Central Codification Committee constitute additional external mechanisms for monitoring the quality of legislation.

Reading today’s legislation, one can see a significant qualitative improvement compared to the practice of previous decades. Thanks to a number of interventions, such as the addition of explanatory preambles to amended articles, the main headings of articles, the compilation of a table of contents, the concentration of permissive provisions in separate articles, legislative texts have become more accessible. for their recipients and effective in terms of the intended purposes. However, adherence to parliamentary procedures has also greatly contributed to the improvement of legislation. In 364 bills passed from July 2019 to date, exceptional parliamentary procedures, such as urgent and emergency procedures, are applied in truly exceptional cases, the number of which is constantly decreasing. Three emergency bills have been passed since July 2019, including one in 2021 and none in 2022, up from 7.11 per year during 2015-2019. Also eight emergency bills, including one in 2021 and none in 2022, up from 4.22 per year during 2015-2019. The number of ministerial amendments has been significantly reduced. It also ended the bad practice of last-minute amendments, common in recent decades, made hours or even minutes before the end of the debate in the plenary session of the chamber. Only one amendment has been introduced during the bill’s debate in plenary over the past year and a half. At the same time, ten codification texts have been completed in the two years of work of the current Central Codification Committee, as in the previous seventeen years of work of the respective committees.

The progress that has already been made, of course, does not mean that the pathologies of polynomialism and misogyny are finally over. However, the groundwork has been laid for a paradigm shift that could see Greece play a decisive role in the European and international debate about the quality of legislation.

* Mr. Stylianos – Ioannis G. Koutnatsis is the General Secretary of the Government.