The Government has endorsed a bill that provides for the amendment of Parliament's regulation, which introduces a cooperation mechanism with civil society. Some forms of cooperation provided for in the bill are the organization of permanent consultations, ad-hoc meetings, public hearings, annual conferences and civic initiatives.
One of the novelties of this instrument of cooperation is the civic initiative, which would allow people to submit issues of major public interest to public hearings, by mobilizing and notifying Parliament.
The government specified that the rule which stipulates the right of a group of at least 30 citizens to request Parliament to submit to debate a matter of major public interest should not be interpreted in the sense that civil society will have the right to introduce bills to Parliament. In accordance with Art. 73 of the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova, the subjects who have the right to introduce a legislative initiative are the MPs, the President of the Republic of Moldova, the government and the People's Assembly of the ATU Gagauzia.
The implementation of the intended changes to the Parliament's regulation will require from 50 to 200 thousand lei, as well as the annual salary of two personnel units.
