Kokeilulainsäädäntö ja sen perustuslailliset reunaehdot
Avainsanat:
lainsäädäntötutkimus, perustuslakivaliokunta, kokeilulainsäädäntö, yhdenvertaisuusAbstrakti
Experimental legislation and its constitutional constraints
The article is an examination of the constitutional constraints regarding experimental legislation in Finland. When evaluating the constitutionality of legislation introducing a given experiment, the Constitutional Law Committee of the Finnish Parliament has mainly concentrated on the constitutional principle of equal treatment. In total, there are six evaluation criteria that can be derived from the Committee's practice on experimental legislation. Firstly, the experiment cannot deviate from regulatory requirements, such as the requirement that the exercise of fundamental rights be governed by parliamentary legislation. Secondly, it is possible to deviate from the requirement of equal treatment for purposes of obtaining information and experience on the effects of the experiment at hand. Such information should be objectively necessary and not available by any other means. Also, the limits set in the constitutional principle of non- iscrimination must be observed. Thirdly, the scope of the experiment must be defined directly by law. If this is not possible, the precise criteria for the definition of the scope of the experiment must be established by law. Fourthly, the subjects of the experiment must form a representative sample, sensibly from the point of view of achieving the objectives of the experiment. When compared to others in the experiment or to those outside the experiment, they may be placed in a different position only to the extent necessary to achieve the objectives of the experiment. Fifthly, experimental legislation may only be valid for a fixed period, which should be short. And finally, the implementation of the experiment, the collection of the results and the evaluation must be properly organized. The author argues that the Committee should develop its approach and look more deeply also to the principle of proportionality. The author concludes that the Committee should develop its way to analyse the aims, scope, duration and evaluation of an experiment.
