Riigikogu began its working week with continuing stand-off

Today’s sitting of the Riigikogu started with the raising of points of order again which lasted for two hours.

President of the Riigikogu Lauri Hussar stopped the raising of the numerous points of order by members of the Riigikogu with the following justification: “I do agree that members of the Riigikogu cannot be deprived of their right to raise points of order that is guaranteed by law, but this does not mean that the chair of the sitting has to answer the questions asked by members of the Riigikogu endlessly. The chair of the sitting has the right to assess points of order and has the right to stop accepting them because points of order should not prevail over the performance of the constitutional functions assigned to the Riigikogu, that is, legislative activities,” Hussar explained.

The chair of the sitting also held a vote on the issue of stopping the raising of points of order concerning the agenda. 52 members of the Riigikogu supported that motion and there were no votes against.

Thereafter the Riigikogu approved its nine-item agenda for this working week. 51 members of the Riigikogu were in favour, with 37 against. 

After that, the delivery of Bills and draft Resolutions and the submission of interpellations started again. After numerous documents had been delivered, President of the Riigikogu Lauri Hussar declared a recess for deliberation.

After the Board of the Riigikogu had deliberated for 50 minutes, the chair of the sitting, Vice-President of the Riigikogu Toomas Kivimägi gave an overview of the discussion that had been held in the Board.

“The Board held a discussion in order that the Riigikogu would be able to perform one of its fundamental roles which is to adopt laws and Resolutions, under § 65 of the Constitution,” Kivimägi said.  He noted that, throughout the past week, the Riigikogu had been unable to deliberate any Bills and therefore, at the meeting, members of the Board Lauri Hussar and Toomas Kivimägi had proposed to stop the delivery of Bills and draft Resolutions and interpellations for that day.

“The initiation of Bills and draft Resolutions and the submission of interpellations is a particularly important right of a member of the Riigikogu which is guaranteed by the Constitution. At the same time, the right to submit interpellations must not hinder the Riigikogu from performing other work,” Kivimägi said. He pointed out the recently published commentaries to the Constitution that stated the following: “At the same time, however, it must be taken into account that the exercise of the right to submit interpellations should not develop into a deformity that has no place in the parliamentary system. This means that the right to submit interpellations must not bring along an opportunity to overwhelm parliament with interpellations so that the parliament is unable to perform other functions assigned to it by the Constitution.”

Kivimägi referred to the fact that, for a full week, as a result of the exercise of the right to deliver Bills and draft Resolutions and interpellations, the Riigikogu had been unable to perform its other functions at its sittings, including to discuss the items on its agenda for the sitting. According to him, in such a situation it was justified, in the interests of the Riigikogu as a whole, to take steps to strike a balance between different rights and to enable the Riigikogu to perform all its functions.

He emphasised that the Board of the Riigikogu arranged the work of the Riigikogu, and clause 18 of subsection 2 of § 13 of the Riigikogu Rules of Procedure and Internal Rules Act gave the Board of the Riigikogu the right to decide on the procedural issues not regulated in Acts. Therefore, two members of the Board had decided to move to stop the accepting of Bills and draft Resolutions and interpellations for that day under clause 18 of subsection 2 of § 13 of the Riigikogu Rules of Procedure and Internal Rules Act. Two members of the Board had agreed to the decision while the third member Jüri Ratas had not agreed to holding a vote on this issue.

As there was no consensus in the Board, the motion of the two members of the Board had to be put to a vote. The result of voting: 53 votes in favour, no votes against and no abstentions.

During the opening of today’s sitting, members of the Riigikogu were able to deliver 12 Bills and 11 interpellations.

Opposition members protested strongly against the decision. After numerous protests had been submitted to the chair of the sitting and the chair had rejected them, the Riigikogu started to deliberate the Bill on its agenda.

The Riigikogu concluded the first reading of a Bill

The Bill on Amendments to the Family Benefits Act and to the Act on Amendments to the Family Benefits Act, the Family Law Act and the Employment Contracts Act (17 SE), initiated by the Government, is planned to increase the amount of maintenance allowance and reduce the allowances for families with many children that were agreed upon less than a year ago.

According to the Bill, the maintenance allowance paid to a child when the person obligated to pay maintenance does not pay maintenance or does not pay it in the required amount will increase from 100 euro per month to 200 euro per month from 1 January 2024. In Estonia, single-parent families are the poorest compared to other family types – a third of single-parent households are at risk of poverty.

According to the Bill, from 1 January 2024, the allowance for families with many children will be 450 euro per month for three to six children, and to 650 euro per month for families with seven or more children.

The Bill is intended to repeal from 1 July 2023 the regulation on gradual termination of the payment of allowance for families with many children, according to which the allowance for families with many children is paid until the youngest child of the family attains 19 years of age. As the regulation has been in force for just a few months, this change will not affect many families.

The indexing of the allowance for families with many children with the pension index, which was due to enter into force from 1 May 2024, will also be abandoned.

Minister of Social Protection Signe Riisalo presented the Bill and Karmen Joller gave an overview of the discussion that had been held in the Social Affairs Committee.

During the debate, Jürgen Ligi (Reform Party), Irja Lutsar (Estonia 200) and Jevgeni Ossinovski (Social Democratic Party) took the floor.

The deadline for submission of motions to amend is 5.15pm on 29 May.

During the open microphone, Igor Taro took the floor.

The sitting ended at 9.45pm.

Verbatim record of the sitting (in Estonian)

Video recordings of the sittings of the Riigikogu can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/riigikogu. (Please note that the recording will be uploaded with a delay.)

Riigikogu Press Service
Gunnar Paal,
+372 631 6351, +372 5190 2837
gunnar.paal@riigikogu.ee
Questions: press@riigikogu.ee

Link uudisele: Riigikogu began its working week with continuing stand-off

Source: Parliament of Estonia