ESTONIA

Riigikogu

a) The status of the Parliamentary administration

The Parliamentary administration is the part of the civil service. The normative and organisational independence of the Parliamentary administration from the rest of the civil service is not remarkable. Parliamentary administration has independent career structure, particular procedures for staff recruitment and certain wage system.

b) Relations between the political bodies and the Parliamentary administration

- The President of the Riigikogu (speaker of the parliament) does not influence the 'configuration' of the Parliamentary administration very much.

- The Board of the Riigikogu appoints Secretary General. The Secretary General appoints other executive officers. To appoint an executive officer the Secretary General needs the approval of the Board of the Riigikogu. The rules and conditions governing their replacement are the same as stipulated by the Public Service Act.

- The extent, to which 'super partes' considerations of the President of the Riigikogu and Standing Committee Chair prevail over 'fiduciary' aspects in the way the staff provides direct support to the political bodies depends on the concrete issue.

c) Does the Secretary General have the chief responsibility and accountability for the administration? Or are these shared with other senior officers?

- The Secretary General is generally accountable to the political body on behalf of the whole of the administration, however, responsibilities are shared between several executive officers, and they are responsible for their spheres of activity.

- The Standing Committee’s staff is actually more accountable to the Chair of the Committee than to the Secretary General (officially the staff is accountable to the Secretary General).

- The degree of coordination and integration that exists between different offices is quite high. Middle grade executive staff often inter-operates autonomously, but sometimes they need to clarify and discuss certain aspects of an issue with political figures (e.g. Chair of the Committee).

d) The Parliamentary workload, and consequently the administration's workload

Below some data giving an overview of the actual workload that the Parliamentary administration is required to perform is provided:

- The number of parliamentarians is 101.

- Regular sessions of the Riigikogu take place from the second Monday of January to the third Thursday of June, and from the second Monday of September to the third Thursday of December.

- The number of sittings per year is ca 120.

- The number of hours per year is ca 380 h.

* Due to the fact that present Riigikogu was elected and began its work in March of this year, data concerning present Riigikogu is unavailable.

- The procedure of the committees is regulated to a low degree (the procedure of the election of the Chairman and Vice-Chairmen of the committee, the conditions for the declaration the committee sittings public, a quorum of committee, procedure for adoption of resolutions, minutes of sittings are stipulated by the Riigikogu Rules of Procedure Act).

- The President of the Riigikogu does not control the regularity of the procedures adopted by the committees’ chairs.

- Documentation, verbatim recording, translation, duplication, IT-support, advice on legal and procedural matters, research, secretarial work are the areas in which assistance is routinely provided by the Administration to Parliamentary bodies.

e) Relations between the Parliamentary administration and the legislative process

The most complex and demanding tasks performed by the offices to directly support the lawmaking process are the following:

- Drafting technical notes on problems connected with ensuring statutory consistency and constitutionality for Standing Committee members and staff, the officials of the ministry preparing draft legislation and the Riigikogu itself.

- Providing supplementary information to be used to assess the consistency/compliance of draft legislation with the system of normative competence and drafting rules.

- Providing advice on Parliamentary procedure.

- Providing the information available on issues connected with draft legislation.

f) Latest changes in Parliamentary administration

- The Parliamentary administration is participating in the preparatory work at the institutional level connected with the ongoing process of European integration and the result of this work would be the system, where the Riigikogu would participate in the European Union decision making process and which is aimed at increasing decentralisation and devolution of powers.

I. Estonia is known as e-government state with high level of computerisation and Internet use in the Riigikogu. This summer a new web site was launched as one of the tools to increase openness and outreach to the general public. Legislative proceeding of bills may be observed via Internet since 1998. The public is also given opportunity to comment on the draft legislation on the web. Main changes in the system of draft legislation proceeding are connected with the technical platform updating and search engine improvements. The sessions of the Riigikogu may also be viewed via Internet in real time. In the beginning of this year web content management system was initiated, which allows decentralising management of the web and speeding up information flow. This solution eliminates the need for head web administrator. Currently integration of the Estonian ID-card into the Riigikogu IT system is at the stage of development. The primary objective is to implement use of the ID-card in identifying network users. The use of ID-card provides opportunity for signing documents digitally.

II. From time to time the Riigikogu organizes conferences and cultural events (e.g. art exhibitions in the Riigikogu building, Toompea Castle).

III. New regulation concerning the use of documents in the archive of the Riigikogu was implemented at the administrative level.

- Security checks in Estonian Parliament are regulated by the Procedure for the Entry to the Toompea Castle and the Territory Thereof, approved by the Directive of 25 August 2000 of the Secretary General of the Riigikogu. No additional measures have been taken related to security issues following 11 September 2001.

By way on conclusions, the final question is how can parliamentary administrations better cooperate to respond to the on going challenges and to their most complex duties, without wasting their resources ad avoiding duplication.

Besides the mandate given in Athens to explore further cooperation between the Parliaments of the European Union, the objectives of cooperation between national Parliaments were also discussed at the preparatory staff meeting in Stockholm on 22 July. It would be reasonable to wait for the results of this preparatory work. However, the meetings of specialists, professional information exchange and mutual sharing of experience concerning issues of interest undoubtedly improve cooperation between parliamentary administrations.