The Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers (opla) in the Houses of the Oireachtas – History, Functions and Recent Key Parliamentary Legal Issues

The Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers (opla) is the in-house legal team in the Irish national parliament. It provides specialist, non-partisan legal advice to Parliament on a broad range of parliamentary, constitutional and corporate legal issues. In recent years, the opla has been assigned additional functions within the legislative process, now providing legal policy analysis and legislative drafting services to non-Government Members in respect of private legislative proposals and advising Members in respect of Government Bills. This article will provide a history of the opla, will outline some recent key parliamentary legal issues and will elaborate on the recent development of legislative drafting and advisory services within the Office.

Changes in Parliaments - Parliaments in Change (Conference Report)

Hungary’s University of Public Service and Brill Publishers (Leiden, Holland) staged a joint online event on 3 May 2021 about the reactions of Parliaments as traditional institutions to the fast-changing political, social and economic environment of our age. The conference was occasioned by the launch of the International Journal of Parliamentary Studies. Timed to coincide with the Day of Parliament, the scientific event also commemorated the inaugural session of Hungary’s first freely elected Parliament on 2 May 1990. The conference was moderated by Zsolt Szabó, the new journal’s chief editor, as well as associate professor at the University of Public Service and the Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church.

Parliamentary Diplomacy: A Review Article

There is growing academic interest in parliamentary diplomacy. This is a welcome development because for many years only parliamentary practitioners themselves paid much attention to the parliamentarization of international affairs, and then mainly from a technical interparliamentary cooperation perspective. This presently consolidating academic literature still requires a fresh impetus if only because there still remain numerous important and problematic issues that need to be addressed. This article will first set the study of parliamentary diplomacy in its wider context, offering examples and definitions. It will then review its main findings to date – before suggesting a number of important research questions that deserve further attention. It is argued that future studies will need to examine them in more detail in order to strengthen academic research into this ever-expanding worldwide phenomenon. The conclusions will also include a practical suggestion for developing this important new dimension in diplomatic studies even further.

Remote Sessions of the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia and its Working Bodies

Regarding the situation related to Covid-19, the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia in the spring of 2020 wanted to change the way of participation in the sessions of the National Assembly and its working bodies by means of information and communication technology. The main purpose and gole was that even in the case of physical absence of some of MPs, the National Assembly could still perform its constitutionally determined role. With a view of remote participation (debate and voting), the rules of procedure had to be amended first. The article deals with legal dilemmas when changing the rules of procedure and with subsequent technical realisation.

Legislation and Legislative Process in Eastern Europe

The study describes and systemises the constitutional requirements on legislation in Eastern Europe. The comparison reveals that the basic structures of the legislative process live up to the standards of the rule of law. The details, however, are quite frequently deficient or problematic. Laws requiring a qualified majority often cause structural problems, based on poor political culture, and the vague and contradictory regulatory framework. Other problems are a legacy of socialism, e.g. the instrumental perception of the law, or the immature separation of powers. However, the apparent homogeneity of the region and its structural problems that was typical of the socialist era, has given way to a stronger differentiation which often reflects differences that existed prior to the socialist dictatorship. This stronger differentiation concerns, i.a. the extent of executive law-making, the structure of parliament (mono- or bicameral), the majority requirement for the decisions in parliament, and the participation of the people in legislation. In the states that have joined the EU, the European criteria of the rule of law have had their effect, whereas the candidate states on the Wester Balkans are on the way of consolidating their legislative system. Further to the East, the rule of law becomes weaker and weaker.