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11. Legislation-related activities of the NPM
11.4.
Powers related to draft legislation
Pursuant to Section 2(2) of the Ombudsman Act, the Commissioner for
Fundamental Rights shall give an opinion on the draft legal rules affecting
his tasks and competences, and may make proposals for the amendment or
making of legal rules affecting fundamental rights and/or the expression of
consent to be bound by an international treaty.
In order to let the National Preventive Mechanism exercise his power
to make proposals, the State has to submit, ex officio, in their preparatory
phase, all draft legislation concerning detention conditions to the National
Preventive Mechanism.
According to the Act on Legislation, the party drafting legislation shall ensure that any and all organisations empowered by the law to review draft
legislation concerning their legal standing or competence may exercise their
rights.263 The parties responsible for preparing legal regulations usually submit
their drafts to my Office in order to prove that they have complied with my
proposals to modify, repeal or prepare legal rules specified in my reports. I review draft legislation in a complex way, i.e. on the basis of both my experience
obtained during the visits conducted in the capacity of the NPM and my investigations conducted in my general competence. I pay special attention to finding out whether the proposed text of the norm is suitable for remedying treatment criticised in my report and for preventing it from recurring in the future.
In the case of legislative concepts and draft bills relative to the application
of which it has no investigative experience, the NPM draws the attention
of those responsible for the codification to the risks of ill-treatment and to
the measures required for the prevention thereof.264 When reviewing draft
legislation, the NPM, depending on its future visits and the conclusions of its
future investigations, reserves the right to initiate the amendment or annulment of regulations which will have in the meantime entered into force.
The organs responsible for drafting and preparing legislation requested
me to review 154 draft bills in 2018, which is 30 percent less than the 219
drafts in the previous year. More than two-thirds of the draft bills were submitted by the Ministry of Interior (45%), the Ministry of Human Capacities
(21%), and the Ministry of Justice (14%).
My remarks on the draft bills are not compelling; however, their fundamental rights protection approach may facilitate efficient codification and
the elimination of eventual deficiencies, contradictions.
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264
See Section 19 (1) of Act CXXX of 2010 on Legislation.
In his capacity as NPM, the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights reviewed 212 draft bills
in 2016, and 219 in 2017.
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