There is an old, seldom tested idea, the improves the quality of any law when deployed.
It requires the politician to read any proposal they are about to vote on.
It appears when a politician reads the draft law before they vote on it, something miraculous happens. They start to wonder if the proposal makes sense, will benefit their constituents, and if the proposal will deliver the benefits it lays claim to will fall from the heavens when put on the Statute book.
It is likely this still one of the best means of Parliamentary scrutiny that exists today. It is seldom used. Today, that scrutiny is delegated to the political adviser, group advisers or not at all. And, if animal spirits take over, and there is rush to act, there is little to no scrutiny.
As this idea may too unpalatable, here are less intrusive or time consuming options.
How Commissioners Could Improve Commission Proposals Overnight
First, Commissioners should read the explanatory memorandum to the Commission’s proposal before they adopt it in the College. It is not many pages.
Second, they should read the regulatory scrutiny board opinion and any follow up actions. They should also check that it’s taken into account the feedback in the proposal. Again, not too much reading.
Third, in the College they could have more than a brief discussion before they sign off. I’m told that the Soviet Politburo had more animated policy discussions circa 1980s than the College does today.
Fourth, on Monday, the Hebdo should have an even longer discussion, say good 60 minutes, up from from 2-5 minutes, to see is the proposal really necessary. If you wanted to get radical, you could allow Cabinets to raise questions even if they had not sent in written submissions before hand.
Fifth, the Commissioner in charge should swear on the Bible the real resources needed to implement the law , if it were adopted to be adopted, in both the Commission and the Member States are set aside. Of course, you wouldn’t want to pass a law that you knew would never really be implemented on the ground.
Six, you could have a quiz just before College decides to adopt maybe requiring a 90% pass mark by all 27 Commissioners, just to make sure everyone knows the real implications of what they’re about to put forward.
Seven, it could be helpful that all the Commissioners in the room read the inter service consultation feedback and explain why their services did not provide feedback when their Cabinets blocked a negative opinion being submitted.
Eighth, if the Commissioner comes from a country with a long and outstanding track record of not implementing the legislation under under discussion, it could be helpful if they were to provide the answer to this question: “what new would be new value would be brought if a new and tighter piece of legislation were adopted, with likely an even lesser chance of it being implemented in that Member State?”
Finally, there’s a simple question, which seems to be forgotten, why wouldn’t actual implementation – the least glamorous, and maybe for some dull, but often the most important part of better law making – of existing rules do the job? Why wouldn’t that solve the problem? The Commissioner tabling the proposal should explicitly answer this question.
I’m not sure that this would slow down necessary legislation. Indeed, I think it would perhaps encourage it. Of course it would be hellish for those tabling proposals which are mere tokenism and have little to no chance of ever being implemented in several, if not all of the Member States. It may lead to some more serious thinking on how better to resolve serious public policy problems.