The National Participation Council (NPC) welcomes the amendment of the Law on Decisional Transparency, but notes that in the form proposed by the Ministry of Justice, the changes will not produce the expected result – to ensure a really transparent decision-making process.

The bill is to be discussed in the April 2 meeting of the Government. According to the Council, more than 50% of the normative documents approved by the Cabinet last year didn’t go through transparency ensuring procedures.

In a news conference at IPN, the Council’s chairman Sergiu Ostaf said that the bills are often included in the Cabinet’s agenda without preliminary notice. The Government’s appraisals of the legislative initiatives of some of the MPs weren’t debated publicly.

Sergiu Ostaf also said that one of the causes why these normative documents do not undergo transparency procedures is the ambiguity of the decisional transparency requirements. There is also political influence that prevents the observance of the transparency requirements.

The National Participation Council proposes that the bill with amendments to the Law on Decisional Transparency should provide that the body adopting the decision must fulfill the transparency requirements in the formulation and adoption process. Disciplinary and other kinds of punishments are needed for the violation of the law. Civil society asks that the appraisals of MPs’ initiatives should also go through transparency ensuring procedures.