Legislation

Involvement of the Bundesrat

This stage in the procedure may come as a surprise to begin with. Why is the Government's bill not forwarded immediately to the Bundestag to be dealt with under parliamentary legislative procedure? The so called first passage in the Bundesrat provided for in Article 76 of the Basic Law results from the Bundesrat's extensive rights to participate in the legislative process once the bill has been adopted by the Bundestag (this will be considered in detail later on). The Bundesrat could at least delay the entry into force of bills to which it may lodge an objection and even prevent many laws requiring its consent from ever entering into force. So that the views of the Bundesrat and the Länder become known in good time, the Basic Law provides for the Bundesrat to make initial comments on the draft law even before it is submitted to Parliament; the Government thus has an opportunity to take the counterproposals of the Bundesrat into consideration or attach to the draft a written statement of its position on these proposals. The comments of the Federal Government on any objections the Bundesrat may lodge are known as a counterstatement; like the comments of the Bundesrat, which have to be submitted within 6 weeks, this counterstatement is attached to the original bill. Thus the following documents are submitted to the Bundestag: the draft law drawn up by the Federal Government together with an explanatory memorandum; the comments of the Bundesrat; and the counterstatement of the Federal Government on the comments of the Bundesrat. The documents submitted to the Bundestag at the beginning of the legislative process thus already reveal important aspects which may possibly give rise to conflict between the Federation and the Länder at a later stage.

The Federal Government's draft law, together with the explanatory memorandum, the comments of the Bundesrat and the counterstatement of the Federal Government, is transmitted to the Bundestag by the Federal Chancellor with a covering letter to the President of the Bundestag. An example of such a covering letter is printed on p. 84. It relates to the Government's draft Act to Reform the Weapons Law of 11 October 2002, which was published in the Federal Law Gazette Part I of 2002 on p. 3970 ff. In the following pages, this bill will be considered as it passes through the various stages of the legislative process. Improvements to the weapons law previously in force had for some time been considered necessary, in part because it was complicated, difficult to understand, and did not cover all the relevant issues. The draft law aimed, therefore, to fundamentally reform the weapons law to make it more transparent and easier to understand, and to improve the applicability of the regulations. Moreover, it was intended to restrict further the misuse of weapons. For this purpose, the bill provided for a revised version of the Weapons Act. Additionally, to simplify the Weapons Act, provisions relating to the technical safety of weapons and ammunition were to be grouped together in a separate law (the Proof Testing Act). Amendments to a range of other laws were also included, e.g. the Federal Hunting Act and the Code of Criminal Procedure. The new Weapons Act, the Proof Testing Act and the planned amendments to other laws were each set out in separate articles in the draft Act to Reform the Weapons Law. This was thus a so called `article law', a law containing a number of articles putting in place new legislation and setting forth the amendments to existing legislation required as a result.

The interests of the Länder were particularly affected by the bill because it included provisions relating to the procedure of the Land authorities responsible for its execution. It was therefore a so called `consent law', a law which cannot enter into force without the consent of the Bundesrat. Accordingly, the opening formula of the new law reads: "The Bundestag has adopted the following law with the consent of the Bundesrat: ...“

Example of a covering letter

In connection with the parliamentary reform process, the Bundestag called for every bill to be accompanied by what is known as an introductory page. This was accepted by the Federal Government and has been standard practice since 1969. Such introductory pages briefly describe the objectives of the bill, the proposed solution and possible alternatives and the cost of the proposed solution:

Example of a bill

The first page of the bill of the Federal Government is already in the form of a Bundestag printed paper (the number 14 in the top right-hand corner to the left of the oblique stroke indicates the 14th electoral term, i.e. the period between the first sitting of the Bundestag elected in September 1998 and the first sitting of the 15th Bundestag, elected on 22 September 2002, whereas the number to the right of the oblique stroke is the number of the Bundestag printed paper concerned). The Bundestag does not receive the draft in this form; in the Bundestag it is put into this form, printed and distributed to all Members.

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