Deregulation on the agenda for Iraki KRG judges

Following up on previous workshops held in Erbil and Granada in 2012, a new session was held in Ankara earlier this month to complete a cycle of professional training in legislative drafting for judges of the Kurdish region of Iraq (KRG). Funded by the World Bank, supported by the Turkish government and moderated by your blogger (C.H. Montin), this workshop brought together the same judges belonging to the Shura Council (Consultative Assembly) of the KRG and a team of international experts. The judges and experts exchanged information and views focused on the "cutting edge" of better regulation: deregulation techniques supporting the improvement of the regulatory environmnent of business. Course members actively discussed the relevance of national practice of neighbouring countries (Lebanon and Turkey) as well as advanced legislative techniques presented by D. Macrae (UK) and E. Maurice (Lithuania), and sought to draw lessons for their own work. The course was given a practical illustration by visits to the Turkish Constitutional Court and Council of State. Among the techniques examined at this session the most promising were held to be: the "guillotine", statute law revision and in-built review and sunset clauses. Some of the moderator's slides on "Techniques" and "Deregulation" are also made available on this blog.

For a very good introduction to the subject matter, see "Tools and Approaches to Review Existing Regulations" published by the World Bank which gives an overview of the numerous techniques and good examples of their implementation.

Moscow Higher School of Economics discusses Smart Regulation

(Photo Natalya Kazmina )The international workshop organised by the National Research University 'Higher School of Economics(NRU HSE) on 'Development of smart regulation mechanisms: towards a new regulatory policy in Russia' on 14 March was, in your blogger's view, a great success. A success because of the high number (around 60) of participants from not only Moscow administrations, but also from the business community and the other levels of governement (regions and from the Eurasian Economic Commission); and a success for the quality and scope of the discussions.

The RF authorities will draw their own (official) conclusions, but in the meantime, your blogger noted that several key points met with some degree of consensus:

- the need to complete the regulatory policy agenda, currently heavily dependent on RIA, with other BR components such as an overall explicit policy, some type of quality and performace oversight function to check that the policy is effective, a formal consultation policy, etc. 

- thanks to the presence of business sector representatives and supra and sub-national levels of government, it was quite clear that there was a real need for a coordination and consultation process to bring together all the regulators, in the interest of the economy at large and the civil society;

- most encouraging was the adherence of all participants to the principle that regulatory policy was indeed a great priority for the the growth of the economy thanks to more efficient markets and, accessorily, a better Doing Business ranking.

Our warm thanks and congratulations to Daniel Tsygankov, (and his director Andrey Klimenko, Head of the Institute for Public Administration and Municipal Management) for organising what may later appear as the official launch of Smart Regulation in the Russian Federation.

Programme and all presentations online at http://regulatory-policy.hse.ru/en/pres and photos on Daniel's Facebook page (link above).
For Russian speakers, see "Smart Regulation in 1200 words", now in Russian as УМНОЕ РЕГУЛИРОВАНИЕ

Smart regulation arrives in Moscow (conference)

(Announcement from Moscow) On March 14, 2014 the National Research University 'Higher School of Economics' (NRU HSE) will host an international workshop 'Development of smart regulation mechanisms: towards a new regulatory policy in Russia'.
The workshop consists of two plenary sessions ('scientific-oriented' and 'practical-oriented'). In turn, the latter is organized by levels of regulation — supranational, national and subnational.
The first session speakers are: Senior adviser on regulatory reform in Ministry of Finance of France, editor of the international blog Smartregulation.net Charles-Henri MONTIN — on potential of OECD countries' best practices in regulatory reform; Head of the RIA Center at the Higher School of Economics Daniel TSYGANKOV — on promising tools for improving regulatory decisions quality; Director General of Information-Consulting Centre "Business Tezaurus" Oleg SHESTOPEROV — on approaches to the rulemaking 'limitation' in the field of business regulation.
The second session speakers are: Director of the Department for Development of Entrepreneurship of the Eurasian Economic Commission Rustam AKBERDIN — on practical regulatory impact analysis in the Eurasian Economic Commission; Director of Program Planning and Regulatory Impact Assessment Department of the Ministry of Economy and Planning of the Ulyanovsk region Maksim SVETUNKOV — on experience of conducting RIA in the region; representative of the RIA Department of the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia — practical experience of conductingRIA in the executive bodies, representative of the Economic Department of the State Duma of Russia — the use of financial-economic justification tools in legislative work.
The conference will be broadcast live on the internet, at addresses available on the HSE site on 14 March from 10:00 to 18:00.

Gulf standardisation agencies study BR tools

(Photo: members of two of the three breakout groups at work under the supervision of Miriam Allam, OECD, in charge of the course. Click to enlarge) 

RIA experts know the importance of checking, at the early stages of analysis of new legislation, the potential of "alternatives to regulation" as another way to reach the substantive policy objectives that their agency or ministry is pursuing without increasing the rule book while improving stakeholder input. Among these alternatives, standards occupy a central position as they can greatly contribute to an efficient business regulatory environment. In this context, the initiative of the Gulf Standardisation Organisation (GSO) to hold a seminar for officials from all Gulf states opens great promise of better regulation in the Gulf region, through the use of better evidence-based and consulted technical standards. Under the title "Building a practical framework for RIA", the course covered all the stages of the RIA process, after which delegates addressed ways and means of making the most of the potential of RIA to improve standards in the region, using international best practice.

The success of the course owes a lot to the hospitality of the Bahrain Ministry of Trade and Commerce (Eng. Al-Moamen) and the supervision of Mr A. Benyaich, senior conformity assessment specialist at GSO. The course was supported by Miriam Allam from OECD (pictured) and your blogger CH Montin (France).

The rôle of parliament in better regulation (Paris conference)

Your blogger was honoured to moderate a half-day conference, organised on 5 December jointly by the OECD and the French Senate, on the rôle of Parliaments in the search for Better Regulation. The event, announced in a previous post, brought together MPs and staffers from France, the UK, Sweden and the EU to compare institutional competences and methods to start sharing best practice. The OECD outlined the issue in a concept paper, the first paragraphs of which are quoted below:
"The Recommendation of the Council on Regulatory Policy and Governance is clear: "Ensuring the quality of the regulatory structure is a dynamic and permanent role of governments and Parliaments". As the institutions responsible for approving legislation, parliaments can exercise oversight and control over the application of better regulation principles for new and amended regulation. Through the public debate of proposed bills and amendments, they can help foster a transparent dialogue on the opportunities and challenges offered by new and amended regulation. Through the control they exercise on public expenditures and government performance, they can help monitor the effectiveness and efficiency of regulation.
OECD surveys of regulatory management show a progressive move towards strengthening the role of parliaments in improving regulatory quality. In 2008, 15 jurisdictions (14 OECD member countries and the EU) had a parliamentary committee or other parliamentary body responsible for regulatory policy or reform against 11 in 2005. In seven cases, this committee or body conducts periodic reviews of the quality of proposed legislation. In eight cases, it conducts quality reviews of subordinate legislation. In five cases, the review process is guided by specific criteria. In six the committee or body regularly reports on progress on regulatory policy and reform across government. Consultation is also often an integral part of the legislative process. For example, in New Zealand, Parliament invites public submissions on almost all bills and these are considered by a select committee before it makes recommendations. "
The first panel was devoted to recent changes in the French approach to the matter, which shows that the traditional emphasis on formal quality of the texts and a concern for full enactment, is gradually incorporating a keener sense of regulatory impacts on the economy, parlty under the influence of the principles of smart regulation promoted by Brussels. The second panel introduced several foreign good practices with contributions from the UK, Sweden and European parliaments. This blog will watch for the publication of the proceedings, which will hopefully reflect the many sound ideas about how parliaments and governments can cooperate, by way of the use of RIAs and other methods, to enact better and economically efficient regulation. Videos of the key moments of the conference are already uploaded on the site of the Senate.

Chinese Taipei puts smart regulation on the curriculum

For the second year running, Chinese Taipei (known more commonly as Taiwan) has organised a 5 day course on regulatory reform, as part of the 27th Academy of International Economic Affairs, a training programme offered to some 30 younger government officials, including 8 from friendly countries in Eastern Europe and Latin America.
Organised as a series of sessions equally distributed between presentations, structured discussions/brainstormings and group breakouts, the 30 hours gave enough time to cover the whole spectrum of skills necessary for government officials to produce clear and relevant policy and regulation, geared to sustaining and boosting the quality of the business regulatory environment and hence the competitiveness of their country: policy making, including quantitative techniques such as RIA, and legislative drafting. Best practices from around the world were called to illustrate the most relevant, up-to-date and effective skills that need to be mastered by officials.
This morning, the course members were smiling: the looming typhoon had decided to go South, leaving them the prospect of a restful and well deserved weekend before they tackle the next subject on the heavy Academy curriculum.

KRG judges practice smart regulation

Funded by the World Bank and supported technically by INSTEA and the OECD-MENA Governance Programme, a workshop was organised earlier this week for a group of judges and assistants belonging to the Shura Council (Consultative Assembly) of the Kurdish Region of Iraq. The purpose of the session was to review legislative drafting techniques to accommodate the new requirements placed on the judiciary by regulatory reform objectives. Course members actively discussed the relevance of international examples of best practice and sought to draw lessons for their own work. Your blogger, who participated in the event, was impressed by the expert legal tradition and the determination of the judges to support the rule of law and democratic principles in their work. This workshop also gave a practical example of the issue addressed in the previous post (the relation between sound legislative drafting and better regulation).
For more, see similar projects of the WB in KRG, and examples of legislation in the KRG. Also check the regulatory quality resources produced by the OECD-MENA programme (drafting manual, guide to consultation, etc.)

Smart Regulation in 1200 words

ERRADA, the Egyptian regulatory reform activity, has already been quoted here as RR communication best practice. In particular they publish a monthly newsletter which gives updates about all current RR projects, adding some background on Better Regulation in general, often from abroad. The April newsletter issued last week carries, under the title "Smart Regulation: a Global Challenge for Policy-makers", a brief summary of what is Smart Regulation, starting with definitions and a short account of Canadian and EU varieties. It then lists the most useful best practices and expert tools developped in regulatory policies around the world, with some 40 links to the most interesting online resources and examples. For the text of the article, drafted by your blogger, click on the links below:

Smart Regulation in 1200 words
التشريعات الذكية في 1200 كلمة
La Réglementation Intelligente en 1200 mots 

In the March number, there is a short article by D. Trnka on "Why Is Administrative Simplification So Complicated?"

Serbia embraces BR agenda

As reported in a previous post, the Republic of Serbia has successfully implemented many of the Better Regulation concepts, with special emphasis on RIA and consultation. But much remains to be done, political support must be maintained, for on-going efforts to be completely fruitful and give their full contribution to the country's EU accession preparation. This is made clear in a very well documented and convincing short report by network-friends Slavica Penev and Andreja Marusic.
There are also a number of resources online on the Government Regulatory Reform portal (not in English). Worth visiting are the pages in English of the RIA portal of the ministry of economy and regional development, which include documentation on methodologies and results in impact assessment, of great interest (including opinions on the quality of the assessments published by the RR Council.

Egyptian Better Regulation

It is a pleasure to see that our BR efforts are now spreading to distant countries. This blog has received notification of the publication of a new site in English promoting the Egyptian Regulatory Reform & Development Activity – (ERRADA) This initiative is specifically targeted at making life easier for business. Experts are invited to visit and browse the website  to learn about the work of the Initiative and its latest developments, and give feedback and comments to help develop the website.