Opinion on the Constitution of Finland

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Opinion on the Constitution of Finland Strasbourg, 7 April 2008 CDL-AD(2008)010 Opinion No. 420 / 2007 Or. Engl./Fr. EUROPEAN COMMISSION FOR DEMOCRACY THROUGH LAW (VENICE COMMISSION) OPINION ON THE CONSTITUTION OF FINLAND adopted by the Venice Commission at its 74th plenary session (Venice, 14-15 March 2008) on the basis of comments by Mr Sergio BARTOLE (Member, Italy) Mr Iain CAMERON (Substitute Member, Sweden) Mr Pieter VAN DIJK (Member, Netherlands) Mr Olivier DUTHEILLET DE LAMOTHE (Member, France) Mr Michael JENSEN (Substitute Member, Denmark) Mr Peter PACZOLAY (Member, Hungary) This document will not be distributed at the meeting. Please bring this copy. http://venice.coe.int CDL-AD(2008)010 - 2 - TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ......................................................................................................................................3 I. General remarks......................................................................................................................3 II. Basic Rights and Liberties ..................................................................................................4 III. Referendum and popular initiative (Section 53).................................................................7 IV. The President of the Republic and its election (Sections 54ff)..........................................9 1. Nature of the system of government instituted by the Constitution of 11 June 1999...9 1.1 Clearly a parliamentary system which could even be called rule by assembly........9 1.2 The powers of the President of the Republic are too limited for there to be any question of semi-presidential rule as for example in France. ..............................................10 2. These general considerations should be referred to in examining the question of the election of the President of the Republic..................................................................................11 V. Organisation of the legislative and regulative sphere (Section 80).................................12 VI. International relations - Conduct of foreign and European policy (Sections 93 ff) .........13 1. Division of competence between the President and the Government............................13 1.1 Foreign policy in general ..........................................................................................13 1.2 European Union issues ............................................................................................14 2. Parliamentary control....................................................................................................17 VII. International relations – Rank of international treaties and EU law – in particular in the field of human rights (Section 94 ff) ..............................................................................................19 1. General framework .......................................................................................................19 2. Status of the European Convention on the Human Rights and other treaties in the field of human rights..........................................................................................................................20 3. Rank of international treaties in general...........................................................................21 4. The relationship between EU law and the Constitution...................................................22 VIII. Administration of justice....................................................................................................22 IX. Constitutional and legal review.........................................................................................24 1. Judicial review of legislation (Section 106) ......................................................................24 2. Other aspects of constitutional and legal review .........................................................25 Conclusion .....................................................................................................................................26 - 3 - CDL-AD(2008)010 Introduction 1. Further to a request by the Finnish Ministry of Justice, the Venice Commission was involved in the evaluation of the Constitution of Finland, dated 11 June 1999. This evaluation process may lead to a constitutional revision. 2. In this context, a delegation of the Venice Commission paid two visits to Finland. During the first visit, on 7-8 June 2007, it met in particular with the Minister of Justice and representatives of the Office of the President of the Republic as well as of the Supreme Administrative Court. It then took part in a seminar at the University of Turku, which focused on human rights, and more specifically the role of international treaties in the field of human rights. 3. Further to this visit, individual comments were drafted by the rapporteurs, Messrs Sergio Bartole, Iain Cameron, Pieter van Dijk, Olivier Dutheillet de Lamothe, Michael Jensen, and Peter Paczolay (CDL(2007)083, 074, 075, 076, 091, 097). 4. A second visit took place on 28 January 2008, which was mostly dedicated to the role of the Prime Minister and European and international relations. 5. The present opinion is based on the individual comments mentioned above, and takes into account the information received during the visits to Finland and a number of documents provided by the Finnish authorities. These include the Memorandum on the evaluation and follow-up study of the Constitution of Finland (CDL(2006)095), and a note introducing the main issues to be discussed (dated 12 March 2007), both by the Ministry of Justice; notes on the background to and the future of the Finnish Constitution, on the tasks of the constitutional law committee, on the first amendments to the Constitution and on the current debate as to “why there is no constitutional Court in Finland”. 6. The present opinion was adopted by the Venice Commission at its 74th Plenary Session (Venice, 14-15 March 2008). 7. The opinion addresses issues raised by the Finnish Ministry of Justice in its note of 12 March 2007, namely the referendum and popular initiative, the election of the President of the Republic, the organisation of the legislative and regulative sphere, the conduct of foreign and European policy (including the place of the European Union in the Constitution). It also deals with other topics raised on the occasion of the visits by the delegation of the Venice Commission to Finland: basic rights and liberties, international relations in general, including the rank of international treaties and EU law, as well as the administration of (constitutional and ordinary) justice. I. General remarks 8. In analysing a constitution, the wording of the constitutional provisions must be taken into account as well as the constitutional traditions and constitutional “culture” of the state, especially if they show a long and consistent pattern. Often states have different traditions with respect to the weight that they give to the case-law, constitutional practice, and the travaux préparatoires in both the interpretation and in “fleshing out” the wording of the constitution. The Finnish tradition, as is the case for all the Nordic countries, places great weight on the travaux préparatoires when interpreting the constitution. These are usually regarded as primary interpretative data, and are almost invariably followed by the courts. The Finnish constitutional tradition also heavily emphasises the continuity of development, and the role of practice of CDL-AD(2008)010 - 4 - parliament’s Constitutional Committee.1 Finally, the principle of treaty conform construction, by which parliament is presumed not to legislate in conflict with Finland’s international obligations, is taken seriously by both the courts and the Constitutional Committee (see further paras 12, 15). These points must be borne in mind, amongst other things, when studying the text of the Finnish constitution. II. Basic Rights and Liberties 9. The constitutional rights catalogue of a liberal democratic state should be interpreted in such a way as to avoid conflicts with the international human rights obligations accepted by the state. There are a number of ways in which this may be done. One is to strive for harmony in formulating the language of the two rights catalogues. This can also have the benefit of increasing the propensity of the courts and administrative agencies to have regard to the applicable case-law and general comments of international supervisory bodies. A state emerging from a period of authoritarian rule, with limited traditions of meaningful constitutional rights, and with a need to rapidly put into place a coherent catalogue of rights will find that a harmonised approach can be particularly useful. However, for a state with a relatively long democratic tradition, which emphasises continuity in constitutional development and which has a rights catalogue which, to a large extent, predates its acceptance of international obligations, a harmonised approach may be less appealing - nor may it be so practicable. Where a state, such as Finland, has ratified many human rights treaties, striving for complete harmony may involve inserting a very long and therefore confusing catalogue of rights in the constitution.2 Even a harmonised or identical formulation between a constitution and a human rights treaty does not necessarily guarantee that the rights in question will be interpreted in the same way by the national courts and the relevant international supervisory body. It must be emphasised that international
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