Dear Reader of the Riigikogu Toimetised.
| Siim Kallas | Presentation in the Riigikogu at the 1st Reading of the Draft State Budget Act 2000 |
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| Kalle Jürgenson | State Budget 2000, What and Why? |
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| Olev Raju | Commentaries on the State Budget 2000 |
| Madis Võõras | Estonia on the Way to Full Membership of the European Space Agency |
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| Ene Ergma | Estonia Has Become a Space State |
| Urve Läänemets | A Good Teacher Should Be Ready to Learn Also from the Pupils |
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| Külli Eichenbaum | Using the Local Peculiarities of Old Võromaa |
Thoughts on Parliamentarism and Democracy. Foreign Policy Discussion. Amendments of the Constitution. State Budget 2000 Act. Private Law. Fight against Corruption. Sociology of Law and Law-Making. Public Opinion: Political Competence of Population. Taxation of Non-Profit Sector. Estonian Delegation to the Council of Europe. Associations of Former MPs. NGO-Political Parties Cooperation Memorandum.
Summaries of articles are in English.
Dear Reader of the Riigikogu Toimetised.
Democracy as a form of a state’s political regime is a constantly regenerating process that is based on a continuing dialogue between the people and Parliament.
The back column of the Riigikogu Toimetised editor-in-chief Aare Kasemets (Riigikogu Chancellery) and managing editor Ülo Siivelt (Estonian Law Centre, Tartu) sums up the issues related to the concept of the publication, its first issue and future plans. When searching for the concept of the Riigikogu Toimetised, the Estonian information market, parliamentary publications in other countries, etc., were analysed. Eventually, a framework arising from the constitutional tasks of the Riigikogu was designed, which has no international counterparts. As the Estonian society and thus the possible readership of the Estonian-language part of the Riigikogu Toimetised is relatively small, it was not practical to create a publication that would focus narrowly only on law or politics.
A short survey by Kait Oole and Aare Kasemets on the discussions of issues of national importance (INIs) in the Estonian Parliament in 1992 – 1999 deals with the discussions of that period by organised by initiators and topics.
Three questions to the members of the Riigikogu*.
*Members of all Riigikogu factions were approached.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Ilves pointed out three strategic directions of Estonian foreign policy.
*The full version of the speech is available on the homepage of the Estonian Foreign Ministry at the following address: http://www.vm.ee/eng/pressreleases/speeches/1999/Riigikogu_25.html
The starting points for defining Estonia’s foreign policy priorities are the following: globalisation as one of the ever deepening processes in the modern world, and three aspectsof the Estonian state – as a nation state, small state, and border state.
Considering Estonia’s present economic situation, the Government took a conservative approach to the drafting of the budget for 2000. One of the aims was also to guarantee transparency of the drafting of the budget, its implementation and monitoring procedures.
Drafting of this year’s budget was based already on the significantly amended law on the foundations of drafting the state budget. Reforming of the state budget has to continue in order to move towards a more transparent and flexible budget.
Commentaries on the State Budget 2000.
The article analyses the possibility to amend the Estonian Constitution that entered into force in 1992, and outlines an action plan for this purpose.
The article presents the organisation of work, objectives and results of the committee of experts set up by the Government in the years 1996 – 1998.
The presentation dedicated to the problems of the Constitution analyses the practice of constitutional review carried out by the Supreme Court to date.
The article provides an international perspective on the questions of corruption and the fight against this scourge.
For the first time, the Riigikogu, the Government of the Republic and the general public have at their disposal official material “An Overview of the Application of the Anti-Corruption Act in 1999”. The legislator now has feedback on how the law is interpreted and how its requirements are observed.
The full Estonian language text of the report is available on the Riigikogu homepage at: http://www.riigikogu.ee/rk_komisjonid.html#P49_3935
In his presentation in the Riigikogu on 22 September 1999 Auditor General Juhan Parts dealt with four topics.
In connection with the organisation of the Estonian legal system there is a proposal to regulate in future all private law contracts under law on obligations.
Max Weber, founder of the sociology of law, explicitly distinguished formal, procedural (how?) and material, substantive (what?) dimensions of law.
The article proceeds from a survey carried out by the Riigikogu Chancellery to study the opinions of participants in the law-making process regarding the use of social information in the legislative process and the ways of raising effectiveness of legislation with the help of that information.
The article describes the essence of the normative technique of law creation, its necessity and the problems of the normative technique that have arisen in the legislative process.
The article is based on a survey carried out in 1999 to analyse 156 draft laws submitted to the Riigikogu with respect to their conformity to the requirements of content of the legal acts regulating the legislative activities of the Riigikogu and the Government, and to the methods for the assessment of the impact of regulations in selected OECD countries.
As is characteristic for a society in transition, democratisation of the society causes conflicts connected to the political expectations of the population and realisation of those expectations.
The article presents some of the results of a survey ordered by the Riigikogu Chancellery which reflects the change in the credibility of the Parliament and the interest of the people in its activities.
There are 5581 non-profit associations in Estonia (as at 1.11.99). By fields of life, their number is the biggest in public, social and personal services (3268 associations), and in real estate, lease and business services (1962).
The Estonian Motor Vehicle Excise Tax Act was under attention already in 1998 with respect to its amendment. The aim of the amendment of the Act was to bring excise tax rates into dependence on the cost of the motor vehicle, and through the excise tax rates promote indirectly the procurement of newer, more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly vehicles. In this connection, an overview of the vehicle taxes in the EU member states was made.
Taking into consideration the producer and consumer subsidy equivalents in planning the future development directions of agricultural policy provides, in the opinion of the author, a sufficiently adequate picture of a comparative level of subsidies by product groups in Estonia.
Summaries of statistics of the first and second instance courts are compiled twice a year, in July and January, and the data is also published on the homepage of the Ministry of Justice.
Proceeding from the common interest to strengthen cooperation between the state and non-profit associations in shaping public policy and promoting participatory democracy in Estonia, and, the desire to provide, as equal partners, a contribution to the building of civil society which is an essential precondition for promoting public welfare and increasing competitiveness of the state, the political parties and non-profit associations of Estonia who are signatories to this Memorandum, consider it necessary to
Commentaries of the representatives of political parties represented in the Riigikogu on the Memorandum of Cooperation reflect almost the whole mosaic of the principles of cooperation between the public authorities, political parties and the third sector.
On 14 December 1999, by signing a cooperation memorandum, a cooperation assembly of Estonian political parties and non-profit associations was founded. The task of the assembly is to help through exchange of opinions to shape views of the both parties on long-term strategic goals of development in Estonia.
One may argue that civil society is best viewed as the process that moves society towards consensus in how to face the future.
The Estonian Law Centre has given its contribution for the development of participatory democracy in Estonia.
The members of Riigikogu participate in seven international parliamentary organisations.
The first delegation of the Riigikogu was established in September 1991 shortly after the restoration of independence of Estonia. It had a special guest status until Estonia acceded to the Council of Europe in May 1993.
Informal or officially registered associations of former MPs are a widespread practice in the world. Gatherings of these associations are officially arranged in the form of annual meetings, but also series of lectures, visits within one’s own country and abroad may be organised.
Statistics of the activities of the VIII and IX compositions of the Riigikogu might be seen as a yardstick for the work accomplished by the Riigikogu. We learn that as a result of the work of the VIII Riigikogu 754 legal acts were adopted, of them 643 laws, 109 resolutions, and 2 statements. The overview contains a comparison of the IX and VIII Riigikogu during the same time period.
The necessity for an international comparison of remuneration and benefits of Members of Parliament has arisen from the work of drafting, amendment and revision of legal acts regulating the payment of the work of Members of Parliament. This overview is based on the data presented in Istanbul in 1996 at the conference of the Association of Secretary Generals of Parliaments.
On 23 April 1919, the democratically elected parliament of the Republic of Estonia – the Estonian Constituent Assembly – began its work.
The editor-in-chief’s hobby-story “Estonian Political Caricature: from Gentle Humour to Biting Satire” begins with a motto by University of Tartu Professor Harald Peep: Humour is said to be very democratic. No one can either be forced to laugh or prohibited from laughing.
The National Library of Estonia has a nine years experience of creating and using bibliographical databases. By now there are more than 40 different databases in the National Library. The article gives an overview of three of them: Majpol, Varia, and Õigus. These databases are mostly used by the Parliamentary Information Centre.
In law-making there can often arise a need for information on social problems. Such information can be obtained from the Estonian Social Science Data Archive (ESSDA) in Tartu. ESSDA is an interdisciplinary centre at the Department of Social Sciences of the University of Tartu which also functions as a national archive of social sciences. ESSDA’s aim is to guarantee the maintenance and use of social information gathered in Estonia and about the Estonian society, as well as integrate Estonian social scientists into international social information networks.