The announced goal of the bill on social stores, submitted by a group of Democratic MPs, is to ensure decent living conditions for socially deprived people, but the draft law contains a number of deficiencies, said experts of the Center for the Analysis and Prevention of Corruption (CAPC).
The bill provides for the creation of social stores, from where socially disadvantaged persons, veterans and families with many children will be able to buy basic necessities at prices lower by 20% than the market prices.
In a new conference at IPN, expert Viorel Parvan, who analyzed the bill, said that the initiative does not contain economical-financial substantiation though money from the founders - the local public authorities of the second level - will be needed to open and run the stores.
Some of the provisions of the bill run counter to the principle of local self-government and the legislation that regulates the local public administration. Powers are given to the local authorities without providing financial resources for them to be able to exert them. This is against the case law of the Constitutional Court, which recently ruled that any legislative amendment referring to the local authorities must be financially covered by the Government.
Viorel Parvan said the bill does not contain the appraisals of the Government and the local authorities and wasn’t proposed for public debates so that society was unable to pronounce on it. The authors also didn’t make a comparative analysis with the experience of other states in this field.
CAPC director Galina Bostan said the implementation of the provisions of this bill will have a positive impact on socially deprived people. The beneficiaries of the law will be able to purchase basic necessities at lower prices and this will help them improve their living conditions. However, if the necessary financial resources are not identified, the bill will remain a dead idea.
The bill was examined within the project “Vulnerability appraisal of draft normative acts in terms of human rights” that is financially supported by the Civil Rights Defenders of Sweden.
