Involvement of civil society and interest groups in the law-making process in the Netherlands

1. Involvement of civil society and interest groups in the law-making process in the Netherlands Jan A.B. Janus Jakarta 4-7 July 2011

2. Consultation A (preliminary) draft bill is is usually submitted for advice to official advisory bodies and to organisations or interest groups, which will in particular deal or will have to do with the legislation in question, or sometimes to individual persons, which have special knowledge of the matter.

3. Reasons for consultation • It appears necessary to find out whether sufficient social, administrative and political support exists for the proposals. • The involvement of external expertise may also be a reason for asking advice, holding discussions, or consulting organisations and individual persons. • The third reason is related to the practicability and enforceability of the legislation in question

4. Ways of consultation • Sometimes consultation takes place with involved and interested organisations on the basis of a memorandum with the principles of the proposed policy and legislation. • Sometimes a preliminary draft is made and published. • Often the draft bill and the explanatory memorandum are sent for advice and comments to advisory bodies, authorities that are tasked with the implementation and enforcement etc.

5. Consultation by Parliament The committee of the Second Chamber that is charged with the investigation of a bill may invite organisations to comment on the bill in question or may organise a public hearing, where organisations can give their reactions.

6. The latest offspring On 24 June 2009, the Government started a two year experiment in addition to the existing consultation methods, namely: internet consultation in order to give citizens, companies and interest groups the opportunity to express their opinions on new draft legislation

7. www.internetconsultatie.nl • For the use of internet consultation a special website has been developed where the Ministries could publish their legislative proposals. • They could determine themselves which proposals would be published on the website for consultation purposes. • It was agreed that at least 10% of the legislative proposals would be published and that the consultation period would take at least four and at most twelve weeks.

8. www.internetconsultatie.nl (2) • The website contains the various legislative proposals that are published for internet consultation and provides information about every proposal, its purpose, its target group(s), the expected effects of the proposal, the purpose of the consultation and the publication of the comments • And - of course - the opportunity is given to comment on the proposal.

9. Evaluation • It was furthermore agreed two years ago that the experiment would be concluded and evaluated after two years. • This evaluation has just been published.

10. Some figures During the two years of the experiment: • 105 legislative proposals have been presented for consultation via the website. • The website has been visited 497.005 times by 181.792 visitors. • The total number of responses received to the proposals is 4993.

11. To be continued In his letter dated 17 June 2011, The Minister of Security and Justice has informed the Second Chamber that the Government has decided to go in with internet consultation and to make more often use of this instrument in the preparation of draft bills, draft orders in council and draft ministerial orders.