M. Voridis: The work of codifying the legislation of the local authorities is massive and titanium

The codification of the legislation of local authorities of first and second degree and its contribution to the provision of quality services, was the subject of a conference organized by the Institute of Documentation, Research and Innovation (ITEK) of the National Center for Public Administration and Local Government (EKDDA), in collaboration the Training Institute (INEP).

Welcoming the conference was addressed by the Minister of Interior, Makis Voridis, who said that the project began to be implemented in 2019 and to date has been codified the legislation on local government by February 2022. He spoke of a “massive, titanium coding project “, as it covers several individual issues of local government legislation, such as their purely organizational structure, while it must cover all those periods over time as local government legislation evolved from state prefectures to elected prefectures, then to regional government, to Kallikrati and the unification of municipalities.

Using as an example the case of the Ministry of Interior, which, as he said, from the time the codification has been completed until today, ie for a period of almost three months, about 50-60 provisions have been legislated for local authorities, Mr. Voridis stressed the need of the immediate updating which according to him should be the work of the state and not of relevant private companies, because they do not have the responsibility of the legislator for what they do.

He also spoke about the work of the Ministry of Digital Government “Coding Portal”, where all the coding is collected in digitized and offered freely to the public in the form of Open Data. In this Portal there will be not only the legislation as it is in force today but also the secondary legislation (Presidential Decrees, Ministerial Decisions, interpretative circulars), the jurisprudence of at least the highest courts for this legislation, while at the same time with the use of artificial intelligence it will be verified. if any change in legislation conflicts with other parts of the legislation.

It was stressed at the meeting that the codification comes to solve a chronic pathogenesis of the legislation of the local authorities of first and second degree, which consists in the existence of a multitude of scattered, fragmentary and often contradictory provisions. To this problem is added the fact of the existence of a variety of legislative regulations, which concern not only the local government but the entire state administration, resulting in contradictions and conflicts with provisions that concern exclusively local government.

Finally, it was noted that to date no legislation has attempted a systematic and complete planning of local government and no one has attempted a radical cut in the existing legal framework, repealing the previous provisions altogether. “As a result, the multiplicity, the regulatory flood and the malignancy are now the major problems plaguing the local government”, it was pointed out at the meeting.

Source: AMPE