As parties prepare for Riigikogu elections, the first campaign advertisements are already on air and the popularity of election promises is being tested. News about who will stand with whom is expected to become a daily feature.
Külli Taro writes that the Riigikogu is Estonia’s most important institution, responsible for debating and deciding significant questions that involve values. Discussions, especially those inside government agencies, can leave the impression that parliament slows necessary decisions and that work would go better if the Riigikogu were not in the way. A problem and an idea are followed by questions, disputes, negotiations, approvals and amendments. When carrying out an idea would require a change in the law, other routes are often sought instead.
She recalls a police calming-stop experiment from years ago, in which drivers who exceeded the speed limit were offered the chance to wait at the roadside instead of receiving a fine. The trial effectively created a new sanction, and the police began shaping punishment policy in place of parliament. A legal amendment giving police the right to try the calming stop as a measure came only later.
Taro also points to a municipal infrastructure fee that the Chancellor of Justice has challenged in the Supreme Court because the charge is in essence a local tax. The constitution provides that a local government may impose and collect taxes and place burdens only on the basis of law, and current laws do not authorise the infrastructure fee. There is no dispute that social infrastructure linked to new housing needs funding. Parliament must decide what share of the cost of schools, kindergartens and other spending that comes with new residents should fall on the developer and ultimately the homebuyer, and what share should be carried as a general public service from the municipal budget. A municipal council cannot take the Riigikogu’s place by invoking local self-government.
Decisions on the use of health data, bank secrecy and other data have also been taken by agencies rather than by the people’s representation, and that has caused considerable public annoyance, with reason, she writes. The Riigikogu must decide whose medical history may be viewed, when, on what conditions and to what extent. Information entrusted to a doctor needs clear legal safeguards.
Parliament’s task, Taro writes, is to set limits on agencies’ access to bank-account statements through the enforcement register. A statement opens a person’s private life, and a purpose that looks worthy from one agency’s point of view does not justify leaving other values unweighed.
The purpose of police number-recognition cameras is understandable, but the greatest anger came from learning that mass data collection had been arranged without a broader debate and even without broader public knowledge.
Technology, she argues, increasingly raises the question of whether society actually wants everything that technology makes possible. Technical solutions need a value decision that separates what can be done from what people want to do. Smart use of data and regulation should not be set against each other. These questions need answers in law, because resolving them decides how much power is given to the state and in what way. Debating them is why the Riigikogu is elected.
Councils and decision committees formed on any other basis do not replace the democratic representative assembly. Representatives should hear outside advice, but responsibility for decisions, the duty to hold a transparent and broad debate, and the need to acquire further knowledge cannot be taken away from parliament.
If the quality of debate in the Riigikogu is unsatisfactory, Taro writes, the response is to raise expectations rather than to leave parliament aside. More precise questions and clearer answers should be demanded. A wave of election promises is about to arrive, and each promise should be tested by asking what problem it solves, whom it helps and at what cost. An idea of doing something new or impressive is not enough on its own. What is needed are solutions that genuinely help, and whose aims, cost and limits can be agreed. Reaching that agreement is the work of parliament.
The commentary was broadcast as a Vikerraadio daily commentary.
Source: Err
Riigikogu data rules · health data access · bank account statements · number-recognition cameras · Külli Taro · Estonian digital state