Increasing Transparency and Participation in Parliament (RS0042)

Increasing transparency and participation at sessions of parliamentary comittees of the National Assembly outside of its headquarters
Q4 2018 - Q1 2020
(October 2018 - February 2020)

Lead implementing agency: National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia

Description

Public opinion surveys and focus group results indicate there is a
need to improve knowledge of the public participation mechanisms
which exist under the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly
of the Republic of Serbia. An improvement in this area would help
build trust in the parliament. The mechanism of sessions outside the
headquarters of the National Assembly should ensure greater
participation of the civil sector (citizens and civil society), to improve
as much as possible access to information on the work of
representative bodies. So far, citizens and civil society representatives
have not sufficiently participated actively in the discussions during
the sessions of parliamentary committees outside the headquarters,
nor have they made sufficient use of the opportunities to make
proposals and ask questions to members of parliamentary
committees, national deputies and representatives of the executive
who attend parliamentary committee sessions.

Main objective: To establish two-way communication with citizens via a separate
section of the National Assembly website dedicated to sessions
outside of the headquarters, in order to give citizens and
representatives of the civil society opportunities to raise issues they observed in their local communities. Specifically, the National
Assembly will develop a subpage through which citizens and civil
society representatives will be able to contact the relevant
parliamentary committee and submit their proposals or questions in
this way. Parliamentary committees of the National Assembly will
plan their sessions outside the headquarters on the basis of such
proposals.
Parliamentary committees of the National Assembly will enable
attendance and participation of representatives of citizens and civil
society organisations at committee sessions outside of the
headquarters when specific issues within the purview of the relevant
committee are discussed. Participation will be ensured through a
contact form on the subpage dedicated to sessions outside the
headquarters, which will create an opportunity for citizens and at
least one representative of the civil society to attend sessions outside
the headquarters.

How will this activity contribute to problemsolving?
In line with the principle of parliamentary transparency, the general
public would have access to parliamentary committees of the
National Committees, which would ensure two-way communication
with citizens. This would give citizens and civil society
representatives an opportunity to highlight specific issues, which
could potentially result in legislative amendments.
Attendance at parliamentary committee sessions would enable them
to participate in the discussion, make proposals and ask questions to
members of parliamentary committees, national deputies and
representatives of the executive who attend parliamentary committee
sessions.

The way in which this activity is relevant to further advancing OGP values?

This activity is relevant for civic participation, transparency and
public accountability, as values promoted and fostered by the Open
Government Partnership. Implementation of the activity will lead to
greater involvement of civil society organisations and citizens in
decision-making, allowing them to highlight specific issues through
two-way communication so that legislative provisions could be
amended as appropriate, as well as to greater visibility of issues at the
local level. Two-way communication promotes and contributes to
greater interest and involvement of civil society organisations and
citizens and awareness of the parliament’s work, which is conductive
to further development of mutual understanding and citizens’ trust of
the government.

Additional information: No additional budget funds are required to implement this commitment.

15. Transparency and participation in parliamentary committees

Language of the commitment as it appears in the action plan:

Title: Increasing transparency and participation at sessions of parliamentary committees of the National Assembly outside of its headquarters

To establish two-way communication with citizens via a separate section of the National Assembly website dedicated to sessions outside of the headquarters, in order to give citizens and representatives of the civil society opportunities to raise issues they observed in their local communities. Specifically, the National Assembly will develop a subpage through which citizens and civil society representatives will be able to contact the relevant parliamentary committee and submit their proposals or questions in this way. Parliamentary committees of the National Assembly will plan their sessions outside the headquarters on the basis of such proposals.

Parliamentary committees of the National Assembly will enable attendance and participation of representatives of citizens and civil society organisations at committee sessions outside of the headquarters when specific issues within the purview of the relevant committee are discussed. Participation will be ensured through a contact form on the subpage dedicated to sessions outside the headquarters, which will create an opportunity for citizens and at least one representative of the civil society to attend sessions outside the headquarters.

Start Date: Q4 2018

End Date: Q1 2020

For full commitment text, please refer to the National Action Plan at https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Serbia_Action-Plan_2018-2020_EN.pdf

Context and Objectives

The Serbian Parliament has a diversity of transparency mechanisms (e.g., live streaming, public hearings, citizen questions to the MPs), ^[174] but they are underused in practice. Voters lack the feeling of closeness or identification with the MPs and have limited means to hold them accountable between elections. [175] Few (20%) MPs have their local offices outside of the capital, ^[176] and only the Committee for Environmental Protection (out of 20 committees) has doors open for participation of citizens and CSOs in its sessions. ^[177] Public hearings are rare, [178] which is concerning given that the current Parliament adopted more than 70% of laws in urgent procedures between 2016 and 2018. ^[179] Stakeholders also point to a lack of space for parliamentary debate due to filibustering. ^[180]

With this civic participation commitment, Parliament intends to re-open itself to citizens and CSOs, offering them a better chance to participate in committee sessions organized in local communities, via a special section on its webpage for submitting questions or proposals to a specific committee. These inputs should serve for planning the committee sessions outside the parliamentary seat and enable participation of a selected group of invited contributors. The commitment aims for a minimum of five sessions attended by at least two civil society representatives.

If implemented as designed, the commitment will have a minor impact on civic participation with Parliament, and participation of local-level CSOs in the Committee sessions will help the MPs better grasp concrete local issues. However, the commitment does not go far enough to ensure a meaningful institutionalized approach to citizen engagement during drafting and deliberation of laws. As stated by the Parliament representatives, organizing sessions based on citizen inputs would not be obligatory but dependent on the will of the committee presidents. ^[181] Second, the goal of minimum five sessions attended by at least two CSO representatives lacks ambition. Third, the parliamentary rules of procedures that allow only the Environmental Protection Committee to be open for civic engagement limit the scope and goals of this commitment. The Centre for Research, Transparency and Accountability believes there are no reasons for this committee to be an isolated case and reported that a majority of interviewed MPs agree that it should apply to other committees, too. ^[182]

Two deliverables are unclear what It is also unclear whether the subpage will allow for a regular feedback by the parliament on the received inputs.

Next steps

The IRM researchers suggest the following measures during the implementation of this commitment:

The parliamentary staff could:

1. Clarify and specify two currently vague milestones about “results mapping” and “organizational parameters.” ^[183]
2. Increase the number of organizations targeted for the sessions and increase the number of sessions to at least 10. The Parliament should aim toward an equal balance between the committee members and the citizens/civil society. To overcome potential financial constraints, the Parliament could partner with local CSOs that can provide free space for the sessions.
3. Publish past and future citizen inquiries and official responses on the Parliament page.
4. Make the new page for submitting inputs to committee president more prominent on the website and promote it on social media.

• To the members of Parliament:
  1. Amend the Rules of Procedures to enable citizen participation in all committee sessions, notwithstanding committees that deal with sensitive data such as security and defence.
  2. Diversify channels of communication with the citizens, such as opening more local offices of MPs for face-to-face approach, which would help those citizens who do not use the internet (e.g., elderly population). [184]

15. Transparency and participation in parliamentary committees

Completion: Limited:

Since October 2018 (the planned start date of this commitment) parliamentary committees held six sessions outside the capital city (where Parliament is based). [81] Minutes of five sessions are available, indicating that three sessions hosted on average 4–5 civil society representatives. [82]

The Parliament continues to use many different tools to ensure the public-facing aspect of its work, [83] and continues to inform and invite the media (and local government inform local civil society and media) ahead of meetings outside Parliament headquarters. [84] As a result of this commitment, the Parliament also established a contact form for each committee meeting held outside the headquarters, however, publicly available evidence does not confirm accomplishment of this commitment as envisaged by the action plan. [85] The contact form as envisaged in this commitment which would enable two-way communication between citizens and the National Assembly is not easily findable. [86] There is no publicly available information about how this particular two-way communication operates (whether or when citizens using the form will receive a reply or an invitation to participate in the sessions, for example), nor how or whether proposals submitted via the contact form will inform the planning of sessions outside the parliament headquarters.

The subpage dedicated to the parliamentary committee sessions outside the headquarters is improved in the sense that it contains a map of Serbia with marked sessions from as far back as 2007 and information about each session held, including officially adopted documents of working bodies. [87]