METARULES

Meta-rules and constitutional law: 'co-regulating' legislative processes in Europe?

Coordinatore	UNIVERSITEIT ANTWERPEN    more  Organization address address: PRINSSTRAAT 13 city: ANTWERPEN postcode: 2000 contact info Titolo: Ms. Nome: Anne Cognome: Adams Email: send email Telefono: -2652999 Fax: -2652982
Nazionalità Coordinatore	Belgium [BE]
Totale costo	148˙556 €
EC contributo	148˙556 €
Programma	FP7-PEOPLE Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013)
Code Call	FP7-PEOPLE-2007-2-1-IEF
Funding Scheme	MC-IEF
Anno di inizio	2008
Periodo (anno-mese-giorno)	2008-03-01   -   2010-02-28

 Partecipanti

#	participant	country	role	EC contrib. [€]
1	UNIVERSITEIT ANTWERPEN  Organization address address: PRINSSTRAAT 13 city: ANTWERPEN postcode: 2000 contact info Titolo: Ms. Nome: Anne Cognome: Adams Email: send email Telefono: -2652999 Fax: -2652982	BE (ANTWERPEN)	coordinator	0.00

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Given the fundamental importance of legislation to society, legal scholarship has generated remarkably few insights into the norms that effectively govern legislative processes. Between the extra-legal constraints traditionally studied by political science and the formal constitutional framework that is the territory of constitutional law scholarship, a grey area of seemingly bureaucratic rules on lawmaking can be identified. This project refers to these rules as ‘meta-rules’ and aims to analyse the way they interact with constitutional law. The recent proliferation of ‘Better Regulation’ policies in Europe has led to a convergence of meta-rules applied in different legislative arenas and to a growing salience of these norms. Many meta-rules overlap with constitutional norms in terms of subject matter, for instance the issue of who gets access to the legislative process. However, these rules are inspired by the paradigm of the regulatory state rather than by the traditional rationale of democratic lawmaking. An example of a meta-rule is ‘a legislative proposal can only be put forward if it is accompanied by an impact assessment’. Such a requirement follows a different logic than the assumption that ‘the sovereign parliament can initiate laws as it sees fit’ which is often part of traditional constitutional frameworks. Are meta-rules as they emerge from increased transnational cooperation in the framework of EU ‘Better Regulation’ capable of overriding the formal constitutional rules and principles in certain cases? Or do they instead facilitate their implementation in the day-to-day practice of lawmaking? It is proposed to combine macro-level research on meta-rules by expanding existing databases on regulatory policies in Europe with more detailed case-study based analysis. In doing so traditional methods such as elite interviewing and textual interpretation will be combined with methods that are new to legal research, such as quantitative textual analysis.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Pioneering research into the way laws are made is helping to raise awareness about the potential traps that bureaucracy poses with respect to preserving constitutional integrity.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Legislation, whether it addresses economic, social or environmental objectives, is an integral part of modern society. While social scientists and legal scholars have contributed significantly to the legal dialogue, many of the processes that drive law-making today remain a mystery.

European funding was put towards gaining a better understanding of these so-called meta-rules by focusing on what goes into law-making rather than on what comes out of it. The study, called 'Meta-rules and constitutional law: "co-regulating" legislative processes in Europe?' (Metarules), complements the European Commission's Better Regulation strategy.

The face of law-making is changing, especially in Europe. A growing number of actors are involved in the process, many of whom do not possess formal legal training. Unfortunately, this can and does lead to potential distortions when socially acceptable norms are applied without regard to their constitutionality.

Meta-rules are also thought to contribute to the trend towards increasing consultation and inclusiveness in the law-making process. This study has highlighted that only careful identification and assessment of meta-rules can ensure that our legal system is not being compromised by bureaucracy.