JOINT SUGGESTED AMENDMENTS TO THE DRAFT CONSTITUTIONAL ARTICLES ON DEMOCRATIC LIFE BY THE STANDING COMMITTEE OF EXPERTS ON INTERNATIONAL IMMIGRATION, REFUGEE AND CRIMINAL LAW, AND STATEWATCH, TO THE CONVENTION ON THE FUTURE OF EUROP
We would first take this opportunity to welcome the proposed draft articles of the Constitution relating to the “democratic life” of the EU, proposed by the Praesidium which will incorporate essential principles of democracy and accountability to citizens of EU rule-making activity into the proposed Constitution. In our view the incorporation of such basic principles into the fundamental constitutional text is essential to the legitimacy of the Convention. There are however a number of points in the draft chapter which leave room for improvement and refinement. We set out here in the following pages the main lines of our common concerns by immediately suggesting (underlined) amendments to the text. These concerns are inspired by the wish to ensure that executive and legislative power when exercised by the Council and other institutions, committees, agencies or independent bodies are subject to independent scrutiny and overall accountability to parliaments, the judicial system and ultimately to the citizen. Many of our proposed amendments attempt to ensure that such concerns are expressed in concrete form in the Treaty amendments itself and are self-explanatory for the most part. Where additional comment was required we have supplied it in the form of a brief explanatory note. For further detail, on many of our common concerns, we would refer the reader back to the joint submissions we already submitted to the Convention on the draft articles on justice and home affairs on 30 March 2003 as well as to our much more extensive comments to Working Group X and the Convention
as a whole (together with our sister organisations, ILPA and ECRE) dated 4 November 2002.
JOINT SUGGESTED AMENDMENTS TO THE DRAFT CONSTITUTIONAL ARTICLES ON DEMOCRATIC LIFE BY THE STANDING COMMITTEE OF EXPERTS ON INTERNATIONAL IMMIGRATION, REFUGEE AND CRIMINAL LAW, AND STATEWATCH, TO THE CONVENTION ON THE FUTURE OF EUROP
We would first take this opportunity to welcome the proposed draft articles of the Constitution relating to the “democratic life” of the EU, proposed by the Praesidium which will incorporate essential principles of democracy and accountability to citizens of EU rule-making activity into the proposed Constitution. In our view the incorporation of such basic principles into the fundamental constitutional text is essential to the legitimacy of the Convention. There are however a number of points in the draft chapter which leave room for improvement and refinement. We set out here in the following pages the main lines of our common concerns by immediately suggesting (underlined) amendments to the text. These concerns are inspired by the wish to ensure that executive and legislative power when exercised by the Council and other institutions, committees, agencies or independent bodies are subject to independent scrutiny and overall accountability to parliaments, the judicial system and ultimately to the citizen. Many of our proposed amendments attempt to ensure that such concerns are expressed in concrete form in the Treaty amendments itself and are self-explanatory for the most part. Where additional comment was required we have supplied it in the form of a brief explanatory note. For further detail, on many of our common concerns, we would refer the reader back to the joint submissions we already submitted to the Convention on the draft articles on justice and home affairs on 30 March 2003 as well as to our much more extensive comments to Working Group X and the Convention
Download commentas a whole (together with our sister organisations, ILPA and ECRE) dated 4 November 2002.
Published on
10 April 2003