To make the legislative process more transparent and to provide an opportunity to familiarize oneself with the grounds of the legislation in a convenient and easy-to-understand manner, as well as to provide information on the people who have participated in the drafting of a law, the President of Latvia proposes to define that when submitting a draft law, both the grounds for the proposals and information on the consultations that have taken place during the drafting of that proposal must be provided in writing.
Likewise, the President of Latvia repeatedly proposes to amend the Rules of Procedure of the Saeima so that consideration of the proposals outside the purpose and scope of the draft law discussed in previous readings would be prohibited at the third reading. “This would avoid hasty last-minute solutions that have a high potential for errors,” stated the President of Latvia in his letter to the Saeima.
The President of Latvia also initiates that all draft laws should include annotations before submitting a draft law henceforth. This would allow a more complete assessment of the potential impact of draft laws and provide greater clarity to both the legislator and the public at large on why the law is required and for solving of which issues the new regulation is proposed.
In his letter to the 13th convocation of the Saeima, the President of Latvia has indicated that he has repeatedly called on the Saeima to improve the legislative process and improve the quality of the laws by submitting proposals and motions to improve the legislative process to the Saeima in his letters of 12 September 2016 and 18 August 2017.