OVERSIGHT

Ministers must attend if summoned and are required to answer questions from committee members. By convention, ministers are never summoned, but it is rare for a minister to decline an invitation or request to appear before a committee.

Ministers are regularly summoned in parliamentary committees. The rights of committees do not appear to be restricted. This is reinforced by the fact that most MPs (majority and opposition alike) have very few chances to see their own bill proposals pass in parliament. Therefore they concentrate much of their activities on spoken “question hours” and written questions (which must be answered by the minister in charge), which attract some media attention and thus improve their media visibility.
However, when the attention of the media is not high for a topic, it is frequent to see an important minister replaced by a (less important) state secretary to answer questions.

Ministers, as well as the leading personnel of major state institutions (e.g., the Supreme Audit Office, Ombudsman, etc.) are obliged to attend committee meetings when asked. According to the rules, ministers are also required to present draft bills to the affected committees. If the ministers send officials below the rank of deputy ministers, committees may, and often do, refuse to discuss a legislative proposal.

Committees regularly summon ministers for meetings, called consultations (samråd). These meetings are key elements of how the Danish parliamentary system works. At consultations, MPs get much of their information for the legislative process. At the same time, the meetings are where the People’s Assembly exercises its parliamentary control of the government.

Committees are able to summon ministers to their hearings and do so regularly. Committee meetings usually begin with a presentation by a ministry representative. Ministers can take part in the committee meetings and debates, but cannot be regular members of the committee. Furthermore, when deemed necessary, committees invite the ombudsman or the deputy ombudsman or their representatives to a formal hearing as experts on questions of legislative drafting. In 2009, this happened on four separate occasions.

Parliamentary committees’ right to summon ministers is established by the Basic Law. At the same time, the Basic Law also gives members of the federal government or the Bundesrat the right to be heard in front of the plenum or of any committee.

Parliamentary committees can summon ministers for hearings. In practice, ministers are frequently invited and tend to take such questioning seriously.

Interaction between the parliament and the executive is generally straightforward, even in relation to controversial issues, such as the so called Bombing Affair (Bommeleeër-Affair). This is one of the most sensitive files in Luxembourg’s legal history, going back to a series of bombings in the 1980s, which have still not been solved and which, it appears today, were staged by the police’s own special forces. To investigate this hypothesis the parliamentary commission for justice invited the justice minister and the prosecuting attorney to discuss the issue before them. Even if the commission did not contribute to solving the case, it is an example of the parliament’s power to get information.

Parliamentary committees may summon ministers for appearances. Ministers regularly respond to invitations and answer questions. In addition, there is a weekly session in parliament where legislators can ask questions directly to the ministers.

Ministers and heads of supreme organs of state administration (or their representatives) are obliged to take part in committee meetings whenever issues are discussed that fall within their domain. No restrictions are observed in practice.

The parliament has the constitutional right to summon ministers for participation in hearings. This right is frequently used.

Parliamentary committees have the right to summon members of the government. Committee hearings are a fairly recent procedure in the Swedish parliament (Riksdag). Today they occur regularly and are often broadcast live by public service television. The committees extensively publish the results of the hearings.

Parliamentary committees can summon ministers for hearings. Formally, this request is not binding. However, for political reasons, ministers typically respond to these requests, and answer the committees’ question.

Department secretaries and other high level officials of the executive branch appear with great frequency and regularity, essentially on request, before legislative committees. In the context of an investigation, committees sometimes subpoena executive branch members to make an appearance. But most appearances are voluntary, motivated by the desire to maintain strong relationships with the congressional committee. This is true even though burdens on high level executives become considerable, with preparation for congressional appearances and the appearances taking up a significant share of executives’ time.

Ministers are normally expected to appear before parliamentary committees, but they are not legally or de facto required to do so, and sometimes decline for various reasons. In recent years, ministers have all too often sent their deputy ministers to appear before parliamentary committees.

In August 2005, a constitutional reform (Ley No. 20,050) established the process of ministerial interpellation. Committees in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate have the right to summon ministers for questioning about matters concerning their area. The ministers are obliged to attend. The effectiveness of this new instrument of parliamentary control depends on the quality and quantity of information otherwise accessible to the parliament.

Parliamentary committees have the ability to summon ministers freely and as frequently as they wish. Ministers indeed attend when summoned by such committees, and are obliged to respond to the questions posed by committee members. This procedure is typically followed when a minister introduces a draft law in the Greek parliament, or when a major political issue arises. As in other systems, the voracity of such committee investigations is constrained by party discipline and interests.

Parliamentary committees can legally summon ministers for hearings, but seldom do so. The foreign minister usually attends or is summoned to meetings of the parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs. The cabinet parties at any given time have a majority in the parliament, and therefore in all parliamentary committees. Even in the turbulent times after the 2008 economic collapse, no minister was summoned to speak in front of a hearing. However, Central Bank manager (Seðlabankastjóri) and former Prime Minister Davíð Oddsson was summoned to a meeting in the Commerce Committee.

Article 143 of the Chamber of Deputies’ rules of procedure enables parliamentary committees to summon ministers for hearings. Similar rules apply for the Senate. Summoning ministers is a regular practice, and ministers normally comply with such requests.

Committees may demand the presence of ministers and lower-ranking top ministry personnel, such as senior vice-ministers, among others. There has been no formal change in this power since the 2001 administrative reform. Previously, senior civil servants frequently attended legislative hearings, while junior politicians are expected to do so today. This change was aimed at increasing the role of elected politicians. Under the new DPJ-led government, one can expect the tendency for appointed politicians to answer to parliament to increase; indeed, as the review period drew to a close, there were even proposals to forbid civil servants from answering questions from the Diet.

Parliamentary committees may invite ministers to provide testimony or answer questions. Outright refusal to answer such a request occurs only rarely. In such instances of refusal, the parliament can exert moral pressure, and the relationship between the minister refusing an invitation and parliament might suffer. Ministers will usually accept invitations to avoid this. Nevertheless, ministers often do not answer the questions in a forthright manner, as parliamentarians might wish. If a minister happens to be abroad at the time he or she is invited to appear, a substitute might appear instead. In the Netherlands, parliamentarians have every week the opportunity to summon ministers and pose a seemingly unlimited number of questions. In the period under investigation, the government has been confronted with an increasing number of motions to appear before parliament or respond to questions. For instance, the number of motions submitted by parliament members increased from 1,968 in 2007 to 2,543 in 2008. And the number of written questions increased from 2,671 in 2007 to 3,002 in 2008. Strikingly, the parliament member who raised the most questions was the leader of the one-issue party for animal rights.

Parliamentary committees are largely free in terms of requesting ministers’ attendance at committee meetings. Formally, ministers must be heard at least four times per legislative session. Additionally, each parliamentary group may hold ministerial hearings, varying from one to five per session, depending on the size of the parliamentary group. In general, ministers accede to requests for their attendance at hearings.

Article 110 of the Spanish constitution and Article 44, No. 2 of the Standing Orders of the Congress (the lower chamber of the Spanish parliament) state that parliamentary committees “may summon members of the government” to ask them questions. This also means that ministers and top officials are entitled to attend committee meetings and to be heard, and they may also request to be allowed to attend. The only legal limitation to this mechanism of control is that an individual deputy cannot initiate a summons (this requires 70 deputies or one-fifth of the members of a committee). Initiatives are subsequently voted on (in the Bureau of Congress and the Board of Spokesmen), and once approved, ministers “shall appear before such committee” to report on matters relating to their respective departments.
Thus, ministers are obliged to attend and to answer questions raised in these hearings. Of course, the party supporting the government, which is always disciplined and easily able to get a majority of votes, may reject some of the requirements made by the opposition, but in practice the mechanism of summoning ministers is used very often, with rejections being quite rare (although the timing of the minister’s appearance can be controversial for some sensitive and very politicized topics). Ministers are regularly summoned by the committees overseeing their policy areas (see Task Area Coincidence), and it is even quite common for ministers themselves (who have parliamentary advisors in their private offices) to voluntarily request attendance at a hearing in order to report to the parliament on decisions or events affecting their policy concerns.
In conjunction with the preparation of the 2010 Spanish EU Council presidency, the number of appearances by ministers and other officials to provide in-depth information concerning their European agendas significantly increased.

The right to summon ministers to committee meetings is legally given but de facto somewhat limited due to the possibility of obstruction. This can be attributed primarily to the fact that the governing coalition comprises the majority in any of these committees. Unsurprisingly, the majority of a committee is unlikely to insist that a minister come to a meeting at a specific time when s/he claims to be unable to attend.
However, every member of parliament enjoys the right to interrogate ministers orally at the beginning of every session. A minimum of five members of parliament enjoy the right to interrogate ministers in writing, and can also file an urgent inquiry that has to be discussed in the same session.
For all these reasons, the de facto limitation is usually not a major issue in the parliamentary debates.

The committees are able to summon ministers for hearings, and frequently make use of this right. In exceptional cases, ministers can refuse to attend. Given the supremacy and the discipline of the majority party in parliament during the Fifth Republic, such a refusal does not entail serious consequences.

Under Article 93 of the Mexican Constitution, Congress has the right to summon ministers for the purposes of seeking information. This right is exercised in practice. In fact, a lot of ministerial time is spent in giving evidence in congressional hearings.

It is common practice that ministers follow invitations to visit select committee meetings, but occasionally they refuse to do so. This follows a guideline that committees can request but not require that a minister appear before them. Only the House of Representatives itself can compel members to attend a committee if they do not do so voluntarily.

The right of parliamentary committees to summon ministers is enshrined in Art. 85 of the Slovak constitution. Under the Fico government, however, the MPs of the governing parties tried to limit invitations, and the ministers were often short-spoken.

Ministers can be summoned to parliamentary committee hearings, but they cannot be forced to attend, because ministers have to be members of Parliament, and MPs cannot be forced to attend any meeting. However, ministers will usually accept an invitation to a hearing in a select committee. Whether they then give full answers to the committee or are allowed to stonewall will often depend on the caliber of the committee members.

According to Articles 30 of the parliamentary rules of procedure, the prime minister or ministers can attend committee meetings as the representative of the government without invitation, and may talk on the subject matter at hand. However, the prime minister or minister may also delegate a senior civil servant to be his or her representative at the committee meeting. Moreover, all parliamentarians and members of the Council of Ministers can attend and participate in committee meetings but have no right to submit a motion of amendment or to vote on the subject matter. If relevant, of course, the committee may ask a minister to explain a government position, but he or she is not required to comply with this invitation if there is no legal obligation.
In sum, parliamentary committees are not able to summon ministers for hearings, but the minister in charge of the competence area of a given committee may voluntarily decide to participate in a meeting. Normally, the committees are briefed by high-ranking ministerial bureaucrats. Committees rarely if ever invite ministers other than those dealing with their specific area of policy.

In theory, the Oireachtas has the power to summon ministers for hearings. However, individual committees do not enjoy that right directly. It is restricted to the Dáil Committee on Procedures and Privileges, which is chaired by the chief whip of the government. Thus, in practice, the government controls who can be compelled to attend hearings.
There are also limitations on the issues ministers can be asked. Neither ministers nor civil servants can be asked about cabinet-level decision-making, apart from procedures and administrative issues.