The Parliament’s dialogue with civil society turns increasingly colder, while the legislative process becomes less transparent in subjects of public interest. In this connection, we cannot speak about a responsible government and a transparent legislative process, Elena Prohnitski, deputy director of the Association for Participatory Democracy ADEPT, stated in a roundtable meeting staged by the Legal Resource Center, IPN reports.

Sorina Macrinici, program director at the Legal Resource Center, enumerated a number of problems faced in the communication of NGOs and the legislative body. According to her, the Parliament’s regulations concerning the organization of public consultations on draft laws are rather unclear and a detailed chapter on public consultations should be added to these.

Sorina Macrinici noted that essential changes are made to draft laws before the final passage without holding public consultations. The structure of the draft law is significantly modified and, respectively, the consultations held to discuss the initial variant are useless and only resources and time are wasted. One of the solutions is to return the bill to the Government or, if there is no time, Parliament should make public the amendments it considers necessary and discuss them publicly and then adopt them.

Attending the event, Deputy Speaker of Parliament Valeriu Giletski said Parliament is ready to cooperate with civil society and any aspect can be improved. The legislature took a number of steps to institute eParliament. There was signed a contract with a company from Macedonia that started to digitize the legislative process. The process will last for about a year and will ensure greater transparency.

As to the amendments, the MP said these cannot be published beforehand on the legislature’s website as changes can be proposed during the sitting or some time earlier. The members of Parliament do not have to answer before NGOs and to be their hostage as they were elected by the people and answer only before the voters.