Supreme Court dismisses EKRE's appeal against Riigikogu decisions
The Supreme Court of Estonia has dismissed an appeal by members of the Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE) against decisions made by the Riigikogu concerning aid for Ukraine. EKRE MPs had argued that the failure to consider their amendments when processing certain bills violated their rights as Riigikogu members.
The Supreme Court of Estonia ruled that in the case in question, the EKRE MPs have no right of appeal and that there is no reason to consider the exclusion of such a right unconstitutional.
The 15 MPs challenged three decisions made by the Riigikogu, which were adopted in December. The decision concerned the coverage of the interest costs of the Ukrainian loan, Estonia's increased participation in the Council of Europe Development Bank and the granting of a state guarantee to the European Investment Bank to support the reconstruction of Ukraine.
The EKRE MPs claimed that the Finance Committee of the Riigikogu had violated their right to exercise their mandate by failing to consider some of the amendments the group put forward and not including them in the list of amendments ahead of a second reading.
The Constitutional Review Chamber of the Supreme Court explained that the law does not allow members of the Riigikogu to lodge a complaint against an alleged violation of the right to propose amendments, either by contesting a decision of the Riigikogu that has an external effect, an organizational decision of the Riigikogu that has a national effect, or a decision of a sub-body of the Riigikogu.
According to the Constitution, the right to make amendments to draft decisions of the Riigikogu belongs to the Riigikogu itself. In the present case, the Riigikogu's decisions were such that the parliament, based on a proposal from the government, entered into financial obligations for the Estonian state. The right to propose amendments to such drafts is not required by the Constitution, according to the Supreme Court's ruling.
The Chamber stressed that, although the Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction to rule on disputes over the right to propose amendments that have arisen in parliament based on an appeal by a Riigikogu member, the law in does provide for judicial review of the way in which the Riigikogu has complied with the relevant procedural requirements when adopting laws and decisions, including the right to propose amendments.
A review of this sort can take place either on the basis of a complaint by the person whose rights have allegedly been infringed by the decision, or, in the case of a law, in the context of an abstract or specific review procedure.
The Constitutional Review Chamber of the Supreme Court added that the benefit of being protected before the Supreme Court cannot be the abuse of the rights deriving from the mandate of a Member of the Riigikogu, which is what extensive obstruction in parliament constitutes.
In the Chamber's view, the amendments proposed by the appellants in the present case were motivated by the aim of obstructing the work of the Riigikogu and the discussion of draft legislation initiated by the government. "This is confirmed by both the number of the amendments contested and their irrelevant content (for example, hundreds of alternative proposals to change the amount of money mentioned in the draft by only a few euros)," the Supreme Court of Estonia stated.
The Court added that the appellants had not been deprived of their right to propose amendments in their entirety, but only to the extent that they exceeded the limits a majority in the Riigikogu is required to tolerate.
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Editor: Michael Cole