Civil Society can contribute towards better legislation

The Swiss supported civil society programme – Civica Mobilitas, organized a “National Forum” gathering more than 120 MPs and CSO representatives who discussed potentials for cooperation between them and the future prospects. Regular and intense cooperation, simplifying procedures for civic initiatives, and more frequent meetings between the Assembly and the CSOs were the main conclusions of the National Forum, which was held in the premises of the Parliament.

The Ambassador of Switzerland, H.E. Sybille Suter Tejada, acknowledged the progress of the civil society sector, emphasizing that it became an important player in the policy dialogue and a key partner in the government reforms. “I hope that this positive trend will be followed by other measures including financial support of the Civil Society Organizations and transparent distribution of funds”.

The President of the Parliament, Talat Xhaferi, emphasized the improvement in the openness of the Assembly towards the citizens and the CSOs. “The Assembly, in this mandate, showed that it is open for every initiative coming from the civil society.” He also added that the Parliament might still need to find better ways to channel suggestions coming from civil society more effectively, as well as follow up on their implementation.

Тhe MPs and the civil society representatives shared their close collaboration experiences ranging from changing the legislation to establishing an LGBTI inter-party parliamentary group. Some of the most notable examples were the Istanbul Convention ratification by the Assembly, the adoption of the new Law on Prevention and Protection against Discrimination, as well as the one on termination of pregnancy. CSOs were also involved in the preparation of the new Law on Prevention of Corruption and Conflict of Interests and had an important role during the election of members of the new State Commission for the Prevention of Corruption. Apart from the positive examples, there is a common understanding that the mechanisms and capacities for collaboration are not fully used. Regarding this issue, the MPs are already preparing some changes to the current Rules of Procedure, specifically in the part of CSO involvement.

In the second part of the forum, both MPs and CSOs highlighted the communication gap between them as the key point for improvement, mainly because they still have a lot to learn about each other’s functioning and competencies. There was a proposal for institutionalizing the regular cooperation between them and for establishing a CSO registry in the Assembly.

Parliamentary openness and proactivity will play a key role in building and strengthening this relationship. One of the proposals mentioned updating the Assembly website with resources and materials in an open format that could be of use to the CSOs in their analyses. Introducing “Open Days for the CSOs” and CSO involvement in the parliamentary commissions were mentioned as useful tools as well. They expressed preparedness to overcome the distrust and transform their relation from opposing sides into allies.