Parliamentary Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation: Lessons from Comparative Experience

Recent years have seen an increase in the use of delegated legislation to implement major policy decisions in the UK. This has exacerbated the longstanding criticism that Westminster lacks sufficiently robust procedures for parliamentary scrutiny of delegated legislation. However, the UK is not the only country to use delegated legislation, or to face the challenge of ensuring it receives adequate parliamentary scrutiny. This article therefore places the UK system in wider context by comparing it to six other national parliaments. We highlight one comparative strength of the UK system, two weaknesses it shares with the other six cases, and one way in which the UK might learn lessons from elsewhere. Overall, our evidence suggests that no one country offers a clear template for more rigorous parliamentary scrutiny of delegated legislation. Successful reform of the UK's system is likely to require creative procedural innovation.     

Scrutiny in English Local Government and the Role of Councillors

Overview and Scrutiny Committees were introduced in England and Wales in the Local Government Act 2000 that ended the role the full council and its committees as the locus of decision‐making for most local authorities. Overview and scrutiny committees composed of councillors not on small decision‐making executives were tasked with holding these to account. The performance of scrutiny committees is variable. Generally they work best where they concentrate on reviews of policy and practice, with recommendations following from well‐researched reports. The paper reviews the difficulties which arise when scrutiny committees endeavour to hold powerful executives to account, and suggests that to strengthen this new legislation is required, in particular to institutionalise scrutiny committees as agencies of the full council, the representative body for the area, comparable to the way in which the select committees at Westminster are the agencies of the Parliament.     

论政府信息公开过程中公众参与制度的构建

公众参与是协商民主理论的实现形式,是现代民主理论与实践的重要内容。政府信息公开的实施,尤其是政府信息公开范围和事项的确定,关系到知情权、隐私权等公民基本权利的保障和公共利益的实现及其相互之间的平衡。政府信息公开过程中引入公众参与制度是保护公民基本权利的需要,也是合理认定公共利益的需要。然而,综观《政府信息公开条例》的规定,我们可以发现,公众参与制度在政府信息公开过程中缺失。为贯彻参与民主理论和正当法律程序原则的要求,应当在政府信息公开过程中引入公众参与制度。其具体的制度框架应当包括:建立政府信息公开听证会制度;设置独立的政府信息公开审查咨询机构。     

Rethinking UK Parliamentary Adaptation in EU Affairs: Devolution and Europeanisation

How national parliaments adapt to the European Union is an important debate. However, scholars often overlook the regional aspect. This is particularly so for the UK where, despite devolution since 1999, scholarship remains largely devolution-blind. It is assumed that evaluating UK parliamentary adaptation only requires assessing the work of Westminster committees. This article takes a first step towards rectifying this oversight through reconceptualising UK–EU parliamentary engagement as multi-territory, not state-centric. This is demonstrated by comparing the social construction of practices in Scotland, Wales and at Westminster since 1999. Acknowledging devolution, however, does not just require comparing practices. Additionally, the paper asks how the ideas of devolution have been taken up by actors, potentially transforming the meaning of UK engagement for them. This necessitates new approaches drawn from interpretivist and constructivist institutionalist theories. Ultimately, therefore, the paper goes further than arguing for devolution-aware research to promoting change more generally in how parliamentary adaptation is theorised.     

How legislatures work – and should work – as public space

In a democracy, legislatures are not only stages for performances by elected representatives; they are also stages for performances by other players in the public sphere. This article argues that while many legislatures are designed and built as spaces for the public to engage with politics, and while democratic norms require some degree of access, increasingly what are termed “purposive publics” are being superseded by groups who are only publics in an aggregative, accidental sense. The article begins with a conceptual analysis of the ways in which legislatures can be thought of as public spaces, and the in-principle access requirements that follow from them. It then draws on interviews and observational fieldwork in eleven capital cities to discover whether the theoretical requirements are met in practice, revealing further tensions. The conclusions are that accessibility is important; is being downgraded in important ways; but also that access norms stand in tension with the requirement that legislatures function as working buildings if they are to retain their symbolic value. The article ends with two “modest proposals”, one concerning the design of the plazas in front of legislatures, the other concerning a role for the wider public in legislative procedure.     

‘Respect for Law and Sausages’: How Parliament Made Section 31 of the Growth and Infrastructure Act 2013 on the Sale of Employment Rights

The Parliamentary debates on the clause which became section 31 of the Growth and Enterprise Act 2013 (allowing employees to agree to sign away employment rights for shares in the employing company) show that scrutiny by the House of Commons is very poor, and that scrutiny by the House of Lords is intense and very well‐informed. If the Government loses the argument on a Bill in the House of Lords, it will lose the vote. However, during Parliamentary ping‐pong (the back‐and‐forth process of amendment of a Bill between the two Houses) the Commons, and the Government, will normally get their way, however weak the policy proposal, provided that concessions on detail are made, unless the issue is regarded by the Lords as one of fundamental principle.     

社会保障主体义务分担机制研究——以政府履行社会保障义务为视角

2011年7月1日生效的《中华人民共和国社会保险法》,以法律形式确立了我国“政府主导型”的社会保障模式.历史和现实昭示:各级政府履行社会保障义务的优劣,直接影响公民各项社会保险权利的实现,关系社会的和谐稳定.贯彻实施《社会保险法》,应针对政府履行社保义务存在的问题,根据不同社保项目的特点,确定中央和地方政府分担社会保障义务的机制.     

Meet the critics: Analyzing the EU Commission's Regulatory Scrutiny Board through quantitative text analysis

As part of the “better regulation” agenda, the European Commission created a semi-independent institution, the Regulatory Scrutiny Board, to monitor the preparation of policy proposals. The position of this Board is potentially wide-ranging. A proposal that is not given the green light by it cannot proceed in the Commission's internal decisionmaking process. But so far, the Board has only received scant scholarly attention. We provide a comprehensive analysis of the impact of the Regulatory Scrutiny Board on the Commission's policy preparation. Using machine learning techniques and quantitative text analysis, we study 673 Board opinions and compare almost 100 draft and final policy proposals. Our findings show that the Board is an active watchdog that is taken seriously by the Commission's departments. A full understanding of policy preparation in the EU therefore requires more scholarly attention to the Regulatory Scrutiny Board.     

An information network of officials? Dissecting the role and nature of the network of parliamentary representatives in the European Parliament

Enhancing the role of national parliaments in the European Union’s decision-making process has for some time been a popular way in which policy-makers have sought to address legitimacy problems in the European Union, the Early Warning Mechanism being only one example. In response to these developments, an increasing number of scholars have addressed the question of how parliaments make use of these powers in practice. An important dimension of the process – the role of parliamentary officials in parliamentary scrutiny and control – has so far been neglected in the literature. Against this background, this article examines the role of the representatives of national parliaments in the European Parliament with the aim of understanding the role and the nature of this ‘bureaucratic network’. While falling short of an epistemic community, these officials play an important role in enabling parliamentary scrutiny through the dissemination of information.     

The reluctant activist: the Italian parliament and the scrutiny of EU affairs between institutional opportunities and political legacies

ABSTRACT

The article analyses the participation of the Italian Parliament in the scrutiny of EU affairs after the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon and its implementation through the national Law 234/2012. The empirical analysis highlights that notwithstanding the presence of favourable institutional and political conditions, the involvement of the Italian Parliament in EU affairs moderately increased. The Treaty of Lisbon and Italian legislation improved Parliament’s rights to participate in the ascending phase but without altering significantly the balance of powers between the European Commission and NPs, and between the Italian Parliament and the Government. Moreover, MPs perceive the EWS and the PD as not impactful on decision-making at the EU and the national level.