File n° 32

I. –  deciding upon the competent committee

Government bills and Members’ bills which are tabled before the National Assembly, once they have been declared admissible, are sent for examination to the relevant standing committee. Where necessary, standing committees other than that deemed relevant, may give an opinion on the bill in question.

1. – The Lead committee

This committee may be either a committee especially set up in order to examine a given bill or one of the six standing committees of the National Assembly.

 a)    Setting-up of an Ad-hoc Committee

Article 43 of the Constitution appears to make the setting-up of an ad-hoc committee the rule and referral to a standing committee the exception. However in practice, in the vast majority of cases, a bill is referred to a standing committee and the creation of an ad-hoc committee generally only takes place when the subject of a bill concerns several different standing committees.

From a formal point of view, article 30, paragraph 2, and article 31 of the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly state that an ad-hoc committee may be set up, as of right, when the Government so requests or when one or several chairmen of political groups representing an absolute majority of M.P.s ask for it. It may also be requested by the chairman of a standing committee, the chairman of a political group or by at least thirty M.P.s. Such a request is deemed to be adopted if no objection has been submitted by the Government, by the chairman of a standing committee or by the chairman of a political group. When such an objection is submitted, the National Assembly is required to vote on it after a short debate.

The membership of an ad-hoc committee is restricted to 57 M.P.s and the number of its members belonging to the same standing committee may not be more than 28 (article 33 of the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly).

 b) Referral to a Standing Committee

Unless an ad-hoc committee is set up, the bill is sent to the relevant standing committee.

The President of the National Assembly decides upon the lead committee according to the various remits laid down by article 36 of the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly.

It is rare for a committee to contest such a decision. If there is a disagreement over areas of competence, or if the committee appointed as the relevant committee were to declare the bill beyond its remit, article 85, paragraph 2 of the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly provides that the President, after a debate during which only the Government or the proposer of a bill and the chairmen of the committees concerned, may speak, proposes to the National Assembly the setting-up of an ad-hoc committee. If this motion is rejected, then the President submits the question of the choice of the relevant standing committee to the National Assembly.

2. –  The possibility of referral for consultation

Article 87 of the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly enables standing committees to present an opinion on all or part of a Government bill, Members’ bill or budget appropriation. In the case of the initial finance bill, it is customary that the five standing committees, other than the Finance Committee, which is as of right the lead committee in accordance with article 39 of the institutional law of August 1, 2001 (LOLF), are consulted on the budget of the ministries which fall within their remit. Thus logically, there is no referral for consultation in the case of the setting-up of an ad-hoc committee.

It is possible, in practice, that the lead committee may accept to refer a part of the bill to the committee referred to for consultation. In this case the former does not table any amendments on the part of the bill it has ‘sub-contracted out’ and adopts all amendments proposed by the latter. If such an agreement is not forthcoming, then the amendments proposed by the committee referred to for consultation are in competition with those of the lead committee.

II. –   Examination procedure

1. –  The drawing-up of a report

Every committee which has a bill referred to it, whether it be a standing committee or an ad-hoc committee, a lead committee or a committee referred to for consultation, first of all appoints a rapporteur from amongst its members. The rapporteur’s role is to throw light upon the work of a committee by presenting to it a report in which he lays down his views on the bill and, where necessary, proposes amendments.

With the assistance of one or more civil servants belonging to the secretariat of the relevant committee, the rapporteur begins his work by compiling information on the bill in question. This means that :

―       He organizes meetings with the representatives of the relevant ministry or ministries (ministerial staff, central administrative departments etc.) ;

―       He holds meetings, if he feels it necessary, with representatives of the various associations and socio-professional groups involved ;

―       He gathers a broad range of documents on the subjects dealt with by the bill ;

The special rapporteurs of the Finance Committee are the only rapporteurs provided with legal powers of investigation concerning the Executive. In practice, the other rapporteurs have no great difficulty in obtaining the information they require.

When the rapporteur deems it desirable that the committee hears other opinions than his own on a particular bill, he may suggest the organization of hearings with experts in the field. It is also customary that the committee interviews the relevant minister(s). The committee’s bureau may then, after having consulted the committee, publicize such hearings as it so wishes, in particular by allowing the press or the general public to attend them (article 46, paragraph 3 of the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly). 

2. –   Examination of the report

Once the preparatory work has been completed, the examination of the report is included in the agenda of a sitting of the relevant committee.

a)  Attendance at Meetings

In addition to the members of the committee, the meetings concerning the examination of the report by the lead committee may be attended by interested members of the Government (although they use this right only rarely), as well as by members of other committees (in particular those who have tabled amendments) and, where necessary, the initiator of the Members’ bill (article 86, paragraph 5 of the Rules of Procedure) and the rapporteurs of the committees referred to for consultation (article 87, paragraph 3 of the Rules of Procedure). 

b) Procedure of the Meeting

The examination phase begins with a general discussion which is opened by the rapporteur’s presentation. However when the examination of the report has been directly preceded by the hearing of a minister, the committee may decide that such a hearing and the ensuing debates may be considered as replacing the general discussion.

In all other cases, after the general discussion opened by the rapporteur’s presentation, the committee examines the articles of the bill along with the amendments put forward by the rapporteur and the other members of the committee as well as, if they have been tabled in time, those of M.P.s from outside the committee and of the Government. The committee concludes its work with a vote on the bill as a whole.

c) The Effect of Committee Decisions

The effect of committee decisions depends upon the nature of the bills submitted to it for examination.

In fact, although amendments adopted by the committee on a Members’ bill are immediately included in the text which will be examined in plenary sitting in its modified form, article 42 of the Constitution states that, for Government bills, the National Assembly must not debate the text as amended by the committee (which was the case during the previous Republics) but that proposed by the Government or transmitted by the Senate. The proposals made by the committees thus take the form of amendments which are subject to the same rules of financial admissibility and to the same conditions of examination as those of political groups or individual M.P.s.

In practice, “committee amendments” do gain special treatment in so far as their adoption rate is very high and much higher than that of amendments coming from the Chamber (the rate is around 60% whereas that for amendments proposed by M.P.s of the governing majority is 15% and by M.P.s of the opposition is 1%) as the Assembly is naturally inclined to follow the conclusions of its own committee.

d) Rules of Procedure

In principle, the rules of procedure applied in committee are those, mutatis mutandis, followed in the Chamber, including for procedural motions (excepting “objection of inadmissibility” and “preliminary question”) tabled during the general discussion of bills.

In practice however these rules are applied in a more flexible manner. Discussions generally take place in a relaxed atmosphere and decisions are taken with a minimum of formality : a vote by ballot, which, because of the absence of electronic voting machines, could not take place in the same conditions as in the plenary sitting, is almost never requested. In addition, the “quorum” (i.e. the presence of a majority of members of the committee) is very rarely called for : article 43 of the Rules of Procedure states that it may be called for by one third of the members present but will not apply to the following sitting, which may not, in any case, be held within less than three hours.

e) The Drawing-up of the Report

The deliberations of the committee are brought together in a report which is distributed before the plenary debate. This document, which is often very long, includes :

—    A general analysis of the bill, of its place within the legal provisions to be modified along with international comparisons, as well as an overall political judgement ;

—    An analysis of the content of each article as well of the ensuing debates in the committee ;

—    A comparative table showing, in separate columns, the legislation in force prior to the bill (or to the existing reference texts), the provisions of the original bill (or of that transmitted by the Senate) and the amendments adopted by the committee ;

—    The collection of the amendments not adopted by the committee ;

—    Where necessary two information annexes : one on the European law applicable or being drawn up, which recalls the positions taken by the Assembly through motions, and the other establishing the list of bills liable to be rescinded or modified upon the examination of the new legislation.

3. –   The examination of amendments after the adoption of the report

Amendments which could not be tabled in time to be examined at the same time as the report, must be examined by the lead committee, the day before or the day itself of the plenary sitting, during one or several meetings held in accordance with article 88 of the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly.

During such meetings the rapporteur may table amendments. If such amendments are adopted they will however be considered as amendments tabled by an individual M.P. and not as “committee amendments”.

If necessary, a final amendment examination meeting may take place before the opening of the discussion of the articles (article 91, paragraph 10 of the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly).

4. –   Other meetings after the adoption of a report

There are three other cases in which the committee may be reconvened when dealing with a bill under discussion :

—    The adoption of a motion of referral to committee. In this case the committee must produce a new report within a time limit set down by the Government (if the bill is included on the priority agenda) or by the National Assembly (in the opposite case) (article 91, paragraph 8 of the Rules of Procedure) ;

—    In the interest of debate and, if necessary upon the request of the lead committee, the chairman of the plenary sitting may decide to return one or several articles and the relevant amendments to the committee (article 95, paragraph 6 of the Rules of Procedure) ;

—    Before the “explanations of voting”, the National Assembly may decide a second deliberation on all or part of the bill if the Government or the committee request such a procedure or if the committee accepts such a request from an individual M.P. The committee must then produce a new report, usually verbal, on the provisions which have been returned.

5. –   The public nature of committee work

Detailed minutes of a committee’s debates and votes are written for each committee meeting. These minutes are now available on the internet site of the National Assembly in the “Work in Committee” section.

Committees may also organize hearings open to the press or to the general public.

III. –  the role of committes in the implementation of the laws

M.P.s who had been rapporteurs to their committee on a bill were naturally inclined to follow the implementation of such a bill personally and it happened quite frequently that information reports on the application of the bill were published several months after the law was passed.

Article 86, paragraph 8 of the Rules of Procedure, which was introduced in 2004, provides such assessment with a statutory framework. Six months after the coming into force of a law, the rapporteur, or failing this, another member of the committee, must produce a report detailing the implementation decrees and directives which have been introduced. If implementation instruments have not yet been applied, the rapporteur must reappear before the committee before the end of a second period of six months.