Legislative Process in France

Origin of the texts

Bills

The principal legal texts result in general from the Gouvernement; one calls then the text a project of law. The project is prepared by a “pilot” minister who submits it for opinion to the ministers who will be concerned with his application.

After agreement, the minister transmits it to the general secretary of the Government; if there is not agreement, an arbitration must be returned by the Prime Minister.

The general secretary of Government (SGG) transmits then the project to the Council of State (qualified administrative section or standing committee if there is urgency), which delivers an opinion to the secretariat. After a possible revision of the project to take account of this opinion, the SGG proposes to the Prime Minister and to the president of the Republic the inscription to the day order of the project to next a the Council of Ministers.

After deliberation in the Council of Ministers, the general secretary of the Government will file in the project in front of one of the Assemblies.

Private bills

The Parliament adopts each year some texts, less than 10% of the voted laws, deposited by its own members of Parliament, appointed or senators; one calls then this text a proposal of law.

The Government has powerful means to limit the capacity of the Parlement in the vote of the law:

It is the Government which fixes the greatest part of about a day of the two rooms.
It can, under certain conditions, to prevent the Parliament from modifying its texts.

This parliamentary initiative is criticized, since the members of Parliament can then sometimes subject to the interest private individuals having strong lobbies (lobbies) and representing part of the electoral base of the members of Parliament. That was the case for example at the time of the vote of the various laws on hunting (hunters not representing however that approximately 5% electoral base), where the Parliament yielded to the pressures to introduce clauses very favorable to the hunters (sometimes even in direct contradiction with the standards of the European Union), with the detriment of the other involved general interests.

On another side, this mechanism of private bill also makes it possible the Parliament to be defended against encroachments of the government on its prerogatives. One could see thus that the new financial constitution of the State, which results from the law of the 1 {{er}} August 2001 and which proceeds of a rebalancing of the powers of the Parliament authorization control of the project of the finance law, was of parliamentary initiative and which she was voted by the Parliament without the government not being able to be opposed to it. This law revised the ordinance of January 2nd, 1959 (ever subjected to the control of the Parliament), which, in preoccupations with a rationalized parliamentarism, had strictly framed the powers of the Parliament and had devoted the hegemony of the government in financial matters.

Course of a project or a private bill

The Government files in its bill in front of one of the assemblies, or one or more members of Parliament deposit a private bill on the desk of their assembly.

The vote of the law passes by several phases defined with precision by the Constitution and the payments of the two assemblies. After depositbeing deposited by the Government or the Parliament, a text is examined by a commission, which appoints a rapporteur charged to detail the proposed measures and possibly the amendments to be brought there, is discussed in public and finally voted during one or several readings in each room.

The examination of the text during several readings by each room often makes it possible to improve the text, either by correcting technical points, or by proposing supplementary measures by way of amendment, deposited by a member of Parliament or the Government. More generally, the examination of the law in public by the Parliament is a guarantee of transparency: after the advertisements made by the Government, it gives to the Médias the possibility and time to return account to the French people of the contents of the text such as it is adopted.

Any legislative project is filed in front of the office which decides which day it will be discussed. The procedure is similar in the two assemblies.

The text can be deposited indifferently on the desk of the National Assembly or on that of the Sénat. The governments of the former senator Jean-Pierre Raffarin, Prime Minister from May 6th, 2002 to May 31st, 2005, lodged many texts with the Senate.

The office of the seized assembly names a delegation which examines the financial admissibility of the private bills. The office includes/understands a Chairman, compensated by six vice-presidents, and, in the control of voting operations, assisted by twelve secretaries. The three questeurs play a fundamental role, because they only can engage the expenditure of the assembly concerned.

Examination in committee

After its deposit, the text is forwarded to the one of the six parliamentary commissions. Their reports/ratios and proposals prepare the discussion of the texts in public.

There are two types of commissions defined by the Constitution:

the special subcommittees are created for the examination of a particular text.
the standing committees examine, in the absence of special subcommittee, the texts concerned with their competence. There are only six under the Constitution:

commission of the cultural, family and social affairs;
commission of the foreign affairs;
commission of national defense and the armed forces;
plan and general economy, committee of supply;
commission of the constitutional laws, the legislation and the administration general of the Republic, usually called commission of the laws;
commission of the production and the exchanges.

In practice, the majority of the texts are examined by the standing committees. They are always returned to at least a standing committee seized at the bottom, i.e. on a purely principal basis, but one or more other standing committees can ask to be asked for an opinion.

Amendments

During the parliamentary discussion, the Government, a commission, one or more members of Parliament in each assembly can deposit amendments to modify, delete or add an article of the subjected text.

The number of the amendments is not limited, which can lengthen the debate unnecessarily, to darken it and multiply the incidents of procedure. It is one of the practices belonging to what is called the parliamentary Obstruction (in English filibuster ), a technique aiming at as much as possible delaying the adoption of one text using the regulatory means. Another dilatory tactic consists in deliberately making interminable speeches to make obstruction with a debate.

Of France, the “battle of amendments” consists in depositing an extremely significant number of almost similar amendments and requiring the discussion of each one of them owe the Parliament. The objective of the opposition is generally to force the Prime Minister to intervene in engaging the responsibility for the Government on the text, this process being generally unpopular until in the rows of the majority, the deputies, whatever they are, holding with the prerogatives of the Parliament.

In 1993,3 075 amendments were deposited on the bill on private education.

In February 2003, the left opposition and UDF had deposited 13 000 amendments to try to counter the reform of the ways of voting regional and European.

In June 2003, at the time of the debate on the financing of the retirements, the communist group deposited more 6 000 amendments in committee of the laws.

The absolute records are held at the summer 2006 by the Socialists and the Communists against the relative bill with the energy sector, by depositing 137 537 amendments, of which 43 725 for the Socialist party and 93 676 for the French Communist party, is six times the annual number of treated amendments each year. According to the president of the National Assembly, Jean-Louis Debré, it would be necessary more than five hundred days for the Parliament by sitting twenty-four hours out of twenty-four for all to examine them. According to the chain of information I-TV, the cost of the duplication of these proposals for an amendment, so that each deputy present can have a copy, was to rise with approximately 500 000 euros and to represent four times the height of the Eiffel Tower. To obtain as much amendment without doubled bloom, the parliamentary opposition (PS and PCF) automatically generated some of these amendments by average data processing.

Another technique is to require many adjournments to slow down the adoption of the text.

Discussion in public

The general discussion begins the debate on a text. Intervene successively:

the possible hearing of the Government;
presentation of the Commission Report seized at the bottom, and possibly commissions asked for an opinion;
possibly the discussion and the vote on points of order;
registered speakers.

Three types of points of order can be opposite by the deputies and the senators:

the exception of inadmissibility makes recognize that provisions of the text are not constitutional; it is discussed in public during the general discussion, and its adoption involves the rejection of the text.
the preliminary question makes decide that it is not necessary to deliberate. It is discussed under the same conditions as the exception of inadmissibility and with the same consequences.
the motion of referral to committee is examined after the general discussion closure. Its adoption involves the suspension of the debate until the presentation by the commission seized at the bottom of a new report/ratio. Because of the majority fact, motions of reference are seldom adopted (twenty since 1958). They constitute in fact a means for the opposition of being seen allotting an additional speaking time and of thus expressing in a solemn way its refusal of the text.

Except if a motion of referral to committee is adopted, then engages the examination of the articles of the text in public. On each article, the amendment S are put successively under discussion, on the basis of the amendment from which the text is most distant from that of the article. Each amendment gives place to a vote. Each article is then voted on separately. After the vote of the last article, it is proceeded to the vote on the whole of the text.

Before any poll, the Government can ask for a vote blocked, i.e. only one vote on one or more articles, or the whole of the text, by retaining only the proposed amendments or accepted by him.

The votes are carried out normally by a show of hands and, in case of doubt, by sat and raised. They then do not give place to any personal statement. In the event of open vote requested by the Government, the commission seized at the bottom or a group political, or decided by the Chairman, the deputies vote by electronic process starting from keyboards located at their places. The personal analysis of each poll appears then in appendix of the report of meeting in the Official journal . When the voices are also divided in for and against, the provision voted on is not adopted.

Parliamentary shuttle

The vote of the law in France rests on the principle of the agreement on the same text between the National Assembly and the Sénat.

This agreement is established by the procedure known as of the parliamentary shuttle, described by article 45 of the Constitution: “Any project or private bill is examined successively in the two assemblies of the Parliament for the adoption of an identical text. ”

The text thus carries out “shuttles” between the two assemblies until the adoption of an identical text. Each successive examination is called a reading.

The Government can ask to the meeting of a Joint industrial commission, made up of seven senators and for seven deputies, and charged to arrive to a common drafting on the provisions of a text remaining under discussion between the Parliament and the Senate during the shuttle. It can ask its meeting:

after two readings at least in each assembly in general;
is after only one reading when he declared the urgency, and for the finance laws and the finance laws of the Social security.

The National Assembly has the last word in the absence of consensus, except on the subjects touching with the organization of the Sénat.

Accelerated procedures

Particular procedures make it possible the Gouvernement to accelerate the discussion of a text.

The Government can, before the discussion, to declare the urgency on a text; in this case, the meeting of a Joint industrial commission will be able to take place after the first reading and not after the second. He often exerts this prerogative.

The Prime Minister can engage the responsibility for the Government during a reading in front of the National Assembly on the vote of “a text” (together of the project or private bill, one or more articles, one or more amendments or amendments to an amendment), in accordance with the article 49, subparagraph 3 of the Constitution.

If no motion of censure is deposited in the twenty-four hours, or if a motion is deposited but rejected, the text is regarded as adoptee without discussion.
Si of the deputies deposits a motion of censure. If a motion is deposited in the twenty-four hours and is adopted, the text is rejected and the Prime Minister must present to the president of the Republic the resignation of the Government. The case never occurred.

This procedure cannot be exerted in front of the Sénat, because the Government is responsible only in front of the National Assembly.

The Government can ask for the vote blocked pursuant to article 44, subparagraph 2 of the Constitution: a single vote will relate to whole or part of a text with the amendments which it accepted. The amendments which he refused will be discussed all the same, although they cannot be voted.

A text can be at any moment abandoned: it is enough for the Government more to register it with the day order.

Leaves the not adopted texts

A text deposited is not necessarily discussed: if the Government and the office of the assembly to whom it was submitted do not decide to register it during the meeting, it will never be the subject of an examination and will be regarded as null and void at the end of a few years. It is the case of a great number of private bills. That does not want to say that they are useless: their contents are sometimes taken again later by a member of Parliament or the Government, for example in the form of amendment in another text.

The not adopted texts also make it possible to advance files, especially when they are taken again in the form of amendment in later texts.

Promulgation

When the text is definitively adopted, the president of the Republic has fifteen days to promulgate the law. However, if he considers it necessary, he can within this time ask a new deliberation of the law or some of his articles.

Before promulgation, the law can also be submitted by the president of the Republic, the Prime Minister, the president of the one of the two assemblies, sixty appointed or sixty senators with the Constitutional council for opinion on the constitutionality of the law. A law or articles of law declared nonin conformity with the Constitution cannot be promulgated. For example, the institution of quotas for the women in the law on the election of the city council men of November 19th, 1982 was declared not conforms by the Council.

The promulgation of the law authenticates it and gives him executory force. It is then published in the Journal officiel de la R3epublique fran1caise , in the edition “Laws and decrees”.

Random links: