The President of Latvia has sent a letter on 4 February 2019 to the Legal Affairs Committee of the Latvian Parliament, emphasizing the necessity to improve legislative process and the quality of laws in order to ensure transparency and build public trust in the legislation process. Foreign Investors Council in Latvia (FICIL) strongly supports the President’s initiative and calls for the Parliament to proceed with the necessary amendments to the Rules of Procedure.
FICIL believes that one of the priorities should be an alignment of the legislative process at the level of reviewing the draft law by the Parliament that would exhaust possibilities to push rushed and unconsidered proposals for approval by the Parliament.
To prevent the mentioned problems, amendments to the Rules of Procedure should be proposed, including recommendations provided below:
- Imposing an obligation on all submitters of draft laws (including the President, parliament commission, not less than 5 deputies) to prepare a clear, written annotation for each draft law;
- Implementation of best practices – an obligation to prepare written grounds for each proposal submitted before the second or third reading of the draft law, including also information on consultations that have taken place during the preparation of the proposals;
- Preparation of a written report regarding each draft law, which would include information about the course of draft law’s preparation, most important proposals brought forward during the legislation process, the purpose of the law, and other substantial information;
- Adoption of a clear prohibition to include proposals to the third reading in the Parliament, unrelated to the purpose of the draft law.
The purpose of the recommendations is to promote such legislative practices which have a positive impact on the investment environment in Latvia and improve the overall quality of legal acts.