A bill, submitted by the Ministry of Agriculture but then underwent significant changes in committee, has been found by Reykjavík District Court to have gone against the Icelandic constitution. The chair of that committee was advised by the Ministry to simply submit a new bill rather than attempt to pass off the changes as still essentially the same bill.
Too many changes
Bills in Parliament are typically submitted by ministries, after crafting in ministerial workgroups and accepting feedback from the public government portal. After submission to Parliament, these bills may go to the relevant committees for any changes members of Parliament may want to make, but importantly, any bill must go through three rounds of discussion in Parliament before it can be passed into law. This is specifically outlined in Article 44 of Iceland’s constitution.
As Vísir reports, an agricultural bill submitted by then Minister of Agriculture Svandís Svavarsdóttir last winter went to committee shortly after it was submitted to Parliament. However, so many changes were made to the bill that, by the time it made it out of committee for another round of discussion, it was practically another bill altogether.
This is what Reykjavík District Court has determined to be the case. Þórarinn Ingi Pétursson, the chair of the Industrial Affairs Committee which worked on the bill, told reporters that he expects this judgement will be appealed.
Committee chair warned
Þórarinn Ingi is not just chair of this committee, however. He was also criticised for being involved with this bill when he owns shares in an agricultural company that stood to directly benefit from the passage of the bill into law.
It has also come to light that a lawyer at the Ministry had advised the committee to simply introduce a new bill to Parliament and start the process over, rather than return a bill with so many changes that it essentially constituted a new bill anyway. The legal team did not, however, believe that the changes were so great that it meant a constitutional violation.
It will now likely be for higher courts to decide on the matter.
