Chancellor of Justice Allar Jõks presented a report to the Riigikogu “Overview of consistency of legislation of general application with the Constitution and acts of the Republic of Estonia, and ensuring the constitutional rights and freedoms.”

Last year Chancellor of Justice received 2.353 applications, from which the proceedings were initiated on every third. One third of the applications proceeded dealt with the matters of constitutional review and the rest with the protection of constitutional rights and freedoms. In his report Mr. Jõks raised several unsolved problems.

 

As to the Riigikogu, Chancellor of Justice stated that the problem of members of the Riigikogu, belonging to supervisory boards of state companies, a situation, which is in conflict with the Constitution, remains unsolved despite repeated admonitions. In the words of Mr. Jõks, the solution to the conflict belongs to the competence of the Board of the Riigikogu, who, pursuant to the Law, must enforce the compliance with the fulfilment of the requirement that Member of the Riigikogu must not hold any other state office simultaneously. If this requirement is not complied with, the authority of the Member of the Riigikogu terminates prematurely. Chancellor of Justice urged the Board of the Riigikogu to solve the present situation and reminded that in 1994 the Supreme Court had declared the membership of the Members of the Riigikogu in administrative boards of state companies to be unconstitutional.

According to Chancellor of Justice, in order to ensure the constitutional rights of least privileged population, it is necessary to establish a regulation for the calculation of the rates of subsistence benefits. The regulation must be based on the method for calculating the poverty line and on this basis the rate of subsistence benefit should be reviewed annually.

The priorities of Chancellor of Justice concerning the discussed period also included problems of health protection and processing of personal data. Mr. Jõks also stated that some repercussions had occurred in the activities of persons in private law performing public functions and that the implementation of the European Union Law had caused some unexpected legal problems.

After the review of the first item on the agenda, the Riigikogu started the proceeding of the first reading of the Bill on Amendments to the Basic Schools and Upper Secondary Schools Act and Vocational Educational Institutions Act (669 SE), initiated by the Government of the Republic. The Act was passed with 52 votes in favour. The Act extends the body of students receiving school dinner from the students of forms 1-4 to all the students acquiring basic education.

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