Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is definitely a new term. I have not heard the term "mobile citizens" used before. I like it. I thank Ms Jourová for her presentation. So many areas of the Rule of Law Report touch on much of the work I do but I will try to home in on two particular areas, one of which is the Electoral Reform Act 2022 in Ireland. I authored legislation here some years ago around the Electoral Reform Act. Ms Jourová mentioned elections, election advertising and trying to do elections well. Sometimes, in trying to do elections well, we have actually hindered other types of work around civil liberties, community work and advocacy that does not fall within the realm of elections. Based on Ms Jourová's experience and the work and findings of the report from across the EU, do any equivalent obstacles exist in other countries as do in Ireland in the context of the framing of political purposes? This framing in Ireland has actually hindered normal activism work. This applies to everything from residents associations up. Ms Jourová may be aware that, given the way "political purposes" is framed in Ireland, it falls outside of the regulations of the Standards in Public Office Commission, SIPO.

Even when no general election or referendum campaign is ongoing, normal civil society activism is shut down because of the definition of political purposes in our legislation. Has that come up at all?

I will ask a few questions first and then the witnesses can come back in. I think there was an ECJ finding in respect of Hungary that might be similar to the situation in Ireland in that it involved violation of EU regulations on privacy and Single Market governance. There might be some relation between the two. Based on the witnesses' engagement with the Irish Government, are they confident that legal obstacles which restrict the work of civil society will be addressed and in a timely manner? I know that they cannot be critical of the Government and that they are here for different reasons. My fear, however, is that we have slowed down the process of addressing the issue of the electoral legislation due to the setting up of a commission, which means that, while it is said that everything will be dealt with within the commission, many civil society organisations are not able, while the electoral commission is being developed, to do the work they set out to do for fear of being caught in this kind of rigid definition.

As for the review of the Electoral Acts, do the witnesses feel that those Acts are the appropriate forum in which this legislative anomaly should be addressed or are there alternatives? If the witnesses do not have answers to these questions, there is no need to worry. I can send the questions on to them afterwards if there is anything they cannot answer now.

The rule of law report also expressed concern about the tight timeframes in which new legislation is debated and scrutinised in the Oireachtas, especially during the weeks leading up to the recess periods of summer and Christmas. As an Independent Senator who is quite active, I believe that this is a huge issue because, especially in the Seanad, we work very hard to amend and to review every single piece of legislation that comes before us and we feel that the railroading of legislation really negatively impacts democracy. I know that the report looked at that. Is parliamentary scrutiny undermined, do the witnesses believe, in a similar way in any other EU member state? On our side, the Government has been somewhat quiet in response to widespread domestic criticism of how it has tried to do parliamentary business. Do the witnesses feel that the Government has responded in any such way to the concern expressed in the rule of law report in this regard? Has it responded in any satisfactory way?

I am happy to have the Chair send on any of the questions on which the witnesses would prefer to come back to me.