OVERSIGHT

Experts regularly attend committee meetings and provide evidence and advice to members. Public servants regularly attend meetings to provide evidence.

There are no formal limits to summoning experts initiated by parliamentary committees. Every party, including the opposition (i.e., the committee’s minority), can nominate or invite experts it deems qualified. Expert hearings are held quite regularly.

Parliamentary committees have both legal and de facto rights to summon any expert they chose to provide testimony. In turn, experts have the right to decline the invitation. Committees cannot compel experts to testify.

Parliamentary committees may and often do summon experts.

Parliamentary committees are able to summon experts for committee meetings, and they do it regularly and to an increasing extent. A committee starts its work by hearing experts; each committee decides which experts to call in a particular matter. Besides ministerial representatives, further persons, who have assisted in preparatory work or speak for agencies, organizations and other interested parties of importance for the issue, are involved. The scope of hearings varies greatly. In some cases only one expert may be called, but in major legislative projects a committee may hear even dozens of experts.
Data from earlier research show that the committees consulted advisers in 1938 in 59% of all cases on which they prepared reports; the corresponding figure was 94% in 1960 and a full 100% in 1983. The number of experts consulted has likewise been increasing.

Parliamentary committees are able to summon any expert they feel useful for their work, and often make use of this right.

Parliamentary committees are able to hold public hearings at any time, and can summon experts to attend them. This mechanism is regularly used. Rule 70, Paragraph 1 of the Rules of Procedure of the German Bundestag states that “(f)or the purpose of obtaining information on a subject under debate, a committee may hold public hearings of experts, representatives of interest groups and other persons who can furnish information. Where an item of business has been referred to it, the committee responsible shall be obliged to hold such hearings if one-quarter of its members so demand….” The gathered experts are often able to influence the discussions and bring about changes in the draft laws, thus enhancing the quality of lawmaking.

Parliamentary committees are allowed to invite experts and representatives of interests groups to hearings. In practice, they do so regularly.

Independent experts are frequently asked to appear before standing parliamentary committees. After the dramatic events of 2008, the committees have more frequently summoned experts, mainly lawyers, economists, and finance and banking experts.

There are no restrictions on the rights of committees to summon experts.

Select committees may summon experts. The only restriction is with regard to public servants who need the approval of their minister to attend committee meetings.

Each party represented on a parliamentary committee has the right to invite experts to appear at committee hearings. This kind of invitation is common, with experts coming from interest organizations, NGOs, businesses or academia to present information and views on various issues and policy proposals. Moreover, the parliament has a group of independent experts who can assist legislators by collecting information and performing information analysis.

Parliamentary committees have the right to invite experts. The invitation of experts, ranging from academic scholars to representatives of lobbying groups and NGOs, is common practice.

Parliamentary committees are legally and de facto able to invite experts to hearings. In fact, expert hearings are quite frequent.

Riksdag committees may summon experts, either in pleno (which is not so common) or through the committee staff who may solicit experts’ information and/or advice.

Parliamentary committees are free to invite experts and to listen to their opinions.

According to Article 30 of the parliamentary rules of procedure, committees are able to summon experts from NGOs, universities or the bureaucracy to provide testimony. There is no limitation to the exercise of this right. The committees have funds at their disposal to employ experts, but the status of these experts is not legally defined and there are no permanently employed experts.

Parliamentary committees may summon expert witnesses, who will usually provide any evidence willingly. Should they decline to do so, committees then have the power to order a witness to attend.

It is also important to stress that committees may summon actors involved in an issue being investigated by a committee. A good example was the examination by the Treasury Committee (in February 2009) of the deposed chairmen and chief executives of the Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS following the public bailout of their banks.

Inviting outside experts is established practice in the U.S. legislative process and occurs on an everyday basis.

Experts are regularly invited and questioned in parliamentary committees. The rights of committees do not appear to be restricted. This possibility is often used, for instance, when addressing the so-called ethical laws or institutional reform. There are some de facto restrictions as to the names and range of experts invited, as the decision in principle to query expert advice must be validated by an absolute majority of committee members. This gives a de facto veto power to the majority parties.

Parliamentary committees may summon any civil servant to interview him or her as a subject-area expert. Private experts can also be invited, but in fact the parliament lacks the financial funds to pay for the assistance of prominent private experts. However, there is a group of 50 to 60 specialists from a variety of subject areas, affiliated with the Library of the National Congress, whose task it is to offer professional support to the parliamentarians in their law-making, representative, diplomatic and oversight tasks.

Normal committee meetings take place behind closed doors. However, committees can decide to hold open meetings – including ones without the minister present – and invite experts from outside, as well as civil servants and representatives from interest organizations to explore and discuss issues. Such meetings are also open to the press. Committees may also decide to conduct larger hearings, sometimes in cooperation with the Danish Board of Technology. Such hearings occasionally take place in the room in which the former second chamber of the Danish parliament, the Landsting, met until it was abolished by the new constitution in 1953.

Parliamentary committees may summon experts, with no limitation in this respect. When an issue is debated, committees typically invite experts representing different opinions (for example, experts expressing different viewpoints on pension or higher education reform).

Parliamentary regulations provide for the right of committees to invite any person able to provide important information. The rights of committees are not limited, and committees frequently use this opportunity to summon experts. This also reflects the fact that the Italian committee system plays a more prominent role in the legislative process than do committees in other European parliamentary regimes.

Parliamentary committees are able to summon government or nongovernmental experts to testify. They are invited to committee meetings or, in exceptional cases, when issues become a matter of significant public interest, to meetings open to the public. In October 2009 three environmental organizations were invited to a public hearing about the national plan on CO2 reduction.

Congressional committees frequently summon experts, including international ones, and often take seriously what they have to say. This aspect of governance mostly works well.

Parliamentary committees can and often do invite experts to answer questions, or to facilitate the parliamentarian committee members in asking questions and interpreting the answers. Limited finances are usually the only real constraint on the number of experts summoned. Nonetheless, expert or expert panels are not always involved. Recently, the parliamentary committee that studied the causes for the financial crisis (Commissie De Wit) failed to ask some critical questions. These questions might have been posed if experts had been involved in the public hearings. Unlike the United States, the Netherlands does not have a tradition of public hearings among members of parliament.

Parliamentary committees are largely free in terms of requesting the attendance of experts at committee meetings.

The standing orders of the Congress and the Senate state that parliamentary committees may request, through their respective speakers, “the attendance of persons competent in the subject-matter for the purposes of reporting to and advising the committee.” University scholars, think-tank experts and other researchers are sometimes invited by the parliament for consultation on specialized issues. In principle, the rights of parliamentary committees to invite experts are not limited by any legal or de facto constraint, although it is also true that it remains unclear whether a person who is not a member of the government can refuse a request to attend a regular parliamentary committee session (in the case of inquiry committees set up to investigate specific questions, it is set in law that “any person” summoned must give evidence and information).

Parliamentary committees may invite experts. Under the Fico government, the number of invited experts declined. The governing coalition was less interested in expert advice and perceived most experts as allies of the opposition.

Under Article 62 of the constitution, the Diet, including committees, can summon witnesses, including experts. Summoned witnesses have the duty to appear before parliament. The opposition can also ask for witnesses to be called, and under normal circumstances such requests are granted by the government. However, the use of expert testimony in parliamentary committees is not widespread; experts, academic and otherwise, are relied upon more frequently within the context of government advisory committees, in particular at the ministry level.