LEGITIMIZATION, PUBLIC, OPPOSITION AND THE LAW-MAKING
MILAN HODÁS
JUDr., PhD., research fellow, Department of Constitutional Law, Faculty of Law,
Comenius University in Bratislava
When a statute is discussed with those affected by it, that is most often the general public, it is more likely that it will be respected without a need for sanction mechanisms, i.e. it will be more effective. An important component and purpose of parliamentary procedures lies in providing the opportunity to express the interests of those social groups that do not possess the necessary (political) capacity to enforce their interests. Mutual confrontation of views in Parliament should not be limited to the exchange of arguments between the Members of Parliament, but it is necessary to be read more broadly, in conjunction with the associated ongoing public debate. The addressees of legal norms have a legitimate right to expect that any restrictions on the fundamental rights through the legislation are the result of broad discourse in which all of the participants had been given the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the matter under consideration and to present their informed opinion.
[This article is result of the project "Impacts of the law-making of the European Union on the law-making of a Member State of the European Union in terms of legislative technique and the law-making process", which is funded by the Scientific Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic and of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (Vedecká grantová agentúra Ministerstva školstva, vedy, výskumu a športu Slovenskej republiky a Slovenskej akadémie vied (contract no. 1/0192/15))].
