The Finns Party’s Mauri Peltokangas, who is the chairperson of the Parliament’s Administration Committee, and Wille Rydman celebrated after the passing of a border security act in the Parliament House on 12 July 2024. Helsingin Sanomat revealed last week that a handful of legal experts have filed complaints concerning the controversial act with the European Commission. (Roni Rekomaa – Lehtikuva)
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MEMBERS of the Finns Party on the Parliament’s Constitutional Law Committee have expressed their bafflement with the decision of four legal experts to submit complaints concerning the new border security act with the European Commission.
Helsingin Sanomat last Thursday reported that the European Commission has received five complaints alleging that the act violates EU law.
Four of the complaints were submitted by legal experts who, during the lawmaking process, appeared before the Constitutional Law Committee: Martti Koskenniemi, a professor emeritus of international law at the University of Helsinki, Päivi Leino-Sandberg, a professor of transnational European law at the University of Helsinki, Martin Scheinin, a research professor at the British Academy, and Milka Sormunen, a research professor of law at the University of Helsinki.
“The Constitutional Law Committee is the supreme interpreter of the Finnish constitution,” Teemu Keskisarja (PS) wrote in an e-mail to Helsingin Sanomat.
“A parliament elected by the public voted in favour of the pushback act by a vast majority. Why does Finnish democracy now have to be subjugated to EU bureaucracy? Why does the Finnish constitution now have to be subjugated to transnational juridical pedantry?” he lamented.
The committee members refrained from commenting on whether the legal experts had the right to file the complaints.
“The experts themselves will evaluate how this affects their credibility. At least you can ask if this deviates from established practices and propriety rules,” Onni Rostila (PS) said to the newspaper on Thursday.
He added that some experts experts their “prejudices” about the bill in “extremely exceptional ways” during the lawmaking process.
Passed in July, the border security act grants the government the power to temporarily suspend the reception of asylum applications and turn away people at the border without the opportunity to appeal.
The Constitutional Law Committee did not probe the disconnect between the special act and EU law, arguing that the issue falls under the purview of the Parliament’s Administration Committee. The Administration Committee, in turn, ruled that the necessary legal leeway exists after concluding that EU courts had not ruled on situations similar to that in Finland.
The legal experts heard during the lawmaking process were widely opposed to the act, arguing that it infringes on the Finnish constitution, EU law and international human rights treaties.
Only Scheinin was willing to shed light on his rationale for filing the complaint last week, explaining that the committee had shown a green light to the bill after sidestepping legal norms and arguments and that domestic decisions had left a complaint as the only tool to compel a court to evaluate the constitutionality of the act.
“Although I’m not an EU law expert, but a scholar of constitutional law and international and human rights treaties, here Finland has deliberately built a situation where complaining to the commission is really the only effective legal remedy,” he said to Helsingin Sanomat.
The Supreme Administrative Court in Finland has ruled in response to complaints concerning the possible shutdown of entry points along the eastern border that the complainants have no standing to file the complaint. Human rights courts similarly require that the subject of a complaint has directly violated the rights of the complainant.
In the event that the act is invoked, complaints are not available as a remedy to people denied entry under the act, however.
“Many would prefer to utilise domestic measures, but because they’ve been taken off the table this is the only effective remedy,” remarked Scheinin.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
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Source: www.helsinkitimes.fi
