Estonian Municipal Law, Municipal Policy and Municipal Politics on the Threshold of Changes

• Author: Vallo Olle
• Pages: 49-57

Vallo Olle

Estonian Municipal Law, Municipal Policy and Municipal Politics on the Threshold of Changes

Estonian municipal law is on the threshold of substantial reforms. Presently in Estonia, catch phrases such as administrative-territorial reform, administrative reform, etc. have emerged in the area of a local government. In essence, practically every day passes with the media presenting articles and viewpoints relating to reform. It has also been said that rather than talking about a reform, it would be more correct to refer to administrative reforms, the latter of which would include for example prm of management of ministerial areas of governments, reform of oublic service reform, administrative territorial reform, refoperations procedure, decrease in public sector, providing better public services to people, budget reform and a reform of inter-institutional management. ¹ Be it as it may, reforming the system of the local government will not be feasible without reforming the municipal law. Thereby, the changes should embrace several pertinent laws. The aggregate of these changes would be targeted to the formation of local governments with adequate administrative potential. The latter follows also from the Constitution of the Republic of Estonia ² and its articles about the social justice and the state based on the rule of law (§ 10). Municipal law in turn would create preconditions for the municipal policy setting its margins. The theoretical literature about the municipal law mentions that municipal policy is the product of the fact that elections take place in local governmental units, the political will on the local governmental level is formed, inter alia, by the parties and the sole responsibility to address the local issues lies with the local governments and the local governments associations. To carry out this function they have been provided with a broad range of possibilities facilitating the enforcement of the image of purposefulness (politics). Thus, whereas the municipal law provides a detailed explanation on the relation of the effective law and its interpretation, the area of law as it is (German: Istbestand) and as it ought (German: Istzustand), municipal politics is filling the gaps left by the legislator and the Constitution. ³ Within the frames of the general term of municipal policy it is possible to distinguish local staff policy, financial policy, social policy, i.e. also the municipal politics. The latter represents a branch of law of the municipality that compares the positive municipal law to the existing socio-economic situation and also to the enforcement of the constitutional order. It is based on the distinguishing of the "is" and "ought" norms and it will establish the necessary targeting and amendments of the municipal law and will be beneficial to its elaboration. Municipal law is therefore nothing more than municipal politics in movement. The latter considers the dynamism of the municipal law and reflects several concepts of enforcement of the municipal legal order. ^{4 5}

(25 April 2000).>

The administrative reform of local governments being planned in Estonia is going to affect the broad spectrum of the municipal policy, including undoubtedly also the basic areas of municipal politics: order policy, structural policy and procedural policy. ⁶

The frames of this article, but also the fact that a lot of essential issues has not been settled, i.e. the political decision is absent, would allow merely to outline the discussion points, thereby omitting several relevant issues like the organisational remedies for the reform, financing, etc.

It is clear that essential changes in the municipal law should be systematic and based upon firm conceptual foundation(s). The regrettable fact is that the conception ⁷ (hereinafter: Conception) elaborated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs pertaining to the administrative reform in the area of local governments, which is at the author's disposal, is relatively sketchy and leaves a lot of fundamental issues untouched. It is possible that this attitude is not per se inappropriate, as the Minister has announced the necessity of carrying out the reform dialoguing with people as much as possible. It is difficult to believe that any other attitude would have been acceptable. The Cabinet has discussed the Conception twice and has taken the following positions according to the media: - Administrative-territorial reform commissions shall discuss the merger of the units of local county governments. All county governors shall submit a planning of their county to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, along with the new local government units' map, in the second quarter of 2001.
- As a result of the administrative reform, Estonia will remain with 60-80 local government units (alternatively up to 110), and corresponding borders should be fixed by spring 2001.
- As a general rule, each post-reform commune should have at least 3,500 residents, suburban communes 4,500 residents and cities with less than 10,000 residents shall have to merge its surrounding area.
- There will be no compulsory merger of counties, however, their merger will be accompanied by the extension of the borders, thus changing the area and in some cases the question of abolishing counties reduced to a critical extent may emerge.
- The state is not going to take the "coercive" role, rather its activity will be confined to counselling and consulting.
- The state will not offer merger rewards to local government units on the reason that such funds do not exist. ⁸

The Conception has the general objective of the formation of a local government system that could be characterised as follows: - Democratic leadership and participation of residents in the decision-making on essential issues.
- Adequate level of legislative regulation and its unambiguity.
- Equilibrium of the tasks delegated to a local government, optimisation of means for their fulfilment and the parameters concerning the differences in the size of the county.
- Accessibility of public services to the population and their quality.

Thereby, the document foresees changes in the following areas: - Organisational arrangement of a local government (preconditions: the changes in Local Government Council Election Act ⁹ , Local Government Organisation Act ¹⁰ , Government of the Republic Act ¹¹ and other laws);
- Budgetary arrangement of the local government (preconditions changes in the Rural Municipality and City Budget Act ¹² , Rural Municipality and City Budgets and State Budget Correlation Act ¹³ , Local Taxes Act ¹⁴ , State Budget Act ¹⁵ , Taxation Act ¹⁶ and other laws).
- Administrative-territorial arrangement of a local government (preconditions: the conception for administrative-territorial reform of local government and the draft of the Local Government Administrative-Territorial Reform Act ¹⁷ etc).

Paradoxically, functioning of local governments is not the issue of this document, it is briefly mentioned, that this area falls within the competence of the Ministry of Finance.

Pursuant to § 156 (1) sentence one of the Constitution of the Republic of Estonia, representative body of a local government is the council which shall be elected in free elections for a term of three years. Local Government Council Election Act ¹⁸ , which is a constitutional law, prescribes elections due to merger of local governments in addition to the regular elections (§ 1²). The Conception repeats the objective set out in the coalition agreement to be conducive with partyism in local councils. As this is implemented, the formation of a political will undoubtedly changes. The present legal regulation, pursuant to which the last local government council elections were executed, provides that a political party or an election coalition formed according to the prescribed procedure (it may be formed by political parties or Estonian citizens who have the right to vote) has the right to present candidates for registration. An independent candidate may be presented for registration by any Estonian citizen who has the right to vote, including a person who intends to run as a candidate himself or herself for a local government's council elections. However, such possibility is absent for election coalitions. It is known by now, that the Government of the Republic has taken a fundamental decision to complete the reform entirely by 2002. ¹⁹ The partyism in councils definitely has advantages - the most important could be considered as the solidification of the political responsibility as compared with the present often temporary election coalitions that fall apart soon after the elections. ²⁰ Nevertheless, the author of this article sees the artificial and speedy coercive implementation of partyism on the local level as pushing the events ahead quickly. In reality, most of the councils of the local governments have no partyism with the exception of some bigger cities. For instance, candidates were presented by parties or election coalitions by parties only in 99 communes or cities in 1996 ²¹ , and thereby, those candidates often failed to obtain seats. For comparison, it has no be noted that at present there are 247 local government units in Estonia - 42 cities and 205 communes. This number was more or less the same in 1996. A proposal to consider for the purposes of financing not only the number of seats in Riigikogu but also representation in local councils, seems to be an effective remedy for increasing the interests of parties in participation in the local elections. The attempt to deny the participation of election coalitions in campaigns on the local level should be assessed more broadly. Namely, Riigikogu has already amended correspondingly the Riigikogu Election Act. ²² Accordingly, an independent candidate or a list of candidates may be presented by a party, and an independent candidate may be presented by an Estonian...