Abstract
The last decade has seen the development of the so-called ‘monster bills’ in France, that is too say remarkably long laws, putting together heterogeneous elements. Among the notorious examples of them, we investigate the ‘Grenelle laws’ aiming at protecting the environment field (2009) and the ‘Macron Law’ aiming at liberalizing the economy (2015). The development of these laws is interpreted as resulting from two factors: a. the willingness of the executive power to send a diversity of messages to a diversity of audiences through visible legislation, b. pressures from bureaucracies of state departments cyclically willing to promote their reforms in a context of limited access to the legislatures’ agenda. The paper presents this process as well as it consequences for the functioning of the parliament in terms of work-overload, lobbying and MPs influence. The paper supports the view that the inner-logic of rationalization within the State paradoxically lead to de-rationalize the legislative procedure, i.e. a greater complexity and legal as well as political uncertainty in the passing of such bills.
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Notes
- 1.
Existing studies point to the increase in the bills size (Hispalis 2005; Council of State 2016, 2018). To our knowledge, the trend regarding the heterogeneity of the bills has not been considered so far. Our data cover the 2008–2018 period only and do not enable us therefore to compare with the previous one.
- 2.
Source for all the figures from this chapter: lafabriquedelaloi.fr. This work is supported by a public grant overseen by the French National Research Agency (ANR) as part of the “Investissements d’Avenir” program LIEPP (reference: ANR-11-LABX0091, ANR-11-IDEX-0005-02). My warmest thanks to the lafabrique team and especially the Regards Citoyens hacktivists and Damien Marié.
- 3.
Only bills that finally became laws are considered which excluded the rare governmental texts that are abandoned and the numerous private members bills that are tabled but not considered on the floor of the assemblies.
- 4.
Brouard et al. (2009).
- 5.
Source: Secrétariat général du gouvernement (2019).
- 6.
Law n° 2010-788 of 12 July 2010 for a national commitment for environment. This law came after a first one the previous year who defined the general objectives of environmental policies.
- 7.
Law n° 2015-990 of 6 August 2015 for Growth, activity and equality of economic chance.
- 8.
Law n° 2016387 of 22 March 2012 on the Simplification of law and lightening of administrative procedures which originated from the chair of the powerful law committee of the National Assembly.
- 9.
This contribution seeks to explore the rationales for ‘monster bills’, i.e. bills that are both long and heterogeneous, rather than one of the two aspects separately. The analysis of the length of the bills only points indeed to a diversity of specific factors. Some are technical as the requirement to precise the status for over-seas territories, the on-going codification process or the frequent adding of reports to bills (see Hispalis 2005). Other are political and has to do with agency issues as theorised by Huber and Shipan (2002). Ministers may include details into their bills because they do not trust the administration in charge of the implementations, be it a strong minister afraid to be betrayed by her bureaucracy (typically the minister for Economy) or a weak minister afraid to lose future inter-ministerial battles (typically the minister for Environment).
- 10.
The signal sent by law-makers does not principally result from the unequal information between actors as supposed by the game theory literature (for instance Banks 2001) but from the general uncertainty of all actors concerning the middle-terms consequences of a new law. Most of the time, it is unsure what new legal provisions will produce. Therefore, it is all the more important for law-makers to send the message that they are acting rightly. In addition, the message they sent when legislating can be, on some occasions, totally unrelated to the content of the law. It has been said for instance that President Hollande decided to merge French regions in 2014 to show ‘Brussels’ he was undertaking structural reforms.
- 11.
For a classical view of this issue: Carré de Malberg (1984).
- 12.
- 13.
- 14.
Meetings are regularly organised by the Prime minister services (Secrétariat général du gouvernement) to decide of the legislative agendas. Despite the usual commitments made by the executive power, the middle-term programing established during these meetings is more than often perturbed by on-going events, especially in a vertical and reactive political system such as French one (Brouard et al. 2009).
- 15.
- 16.
De Montis (2016).
- 17.
The procedure is sometimes called the guillotine in the literature. See Huber (1996).
- 18.
More exactly for one bill as it may be used at the different readings of the same bill. No restriction applies for Finance Bill and Social Security Financing Bill. The records of the procedure since 1959 indicate that the 49.3 is used either to bypass an unstable or relative majority or to circumscribe filibustering. More ‘monster bills’ should be therefore expected under these two circumstances.
- 19.
Becher and Brouard (2020).
- 20.
See Boy et al. (2012) for a general presentation of the whole process.
- 21.
The ‘Pacte écologique’ promoted by a popular former TV-program presenter, Nicolas Hulot, had been signed during the campaign by Sarkozy.
- 22.
This was the case for the main environmental law passed during Holande’s years: law n° 2015-992 of 17 August 2015 on the ‘energy transition for green growth’ which very name illustrates the signalling aspect of law-making.
- 23.
My translation of the explanatory memorandum (exposé des motifs) of the law.
- 24.
A televised portray of the minister shows the negative reaction on this issue from his personal advisors (France 2 TV Chanel, 26 February 2015). A documentary on Hollande also indicates that senior majority backbenchers complained about it (Un temps de president by Yves Jeuland, 2015).
- 25.
Several decisions adopted at the EU level during the previous years targeted more precisely notaries. In a decision of 24 May 2011, the EU Court of Justice estimated the notaries were not participating to the exercise of ‘public authorities’ (C-50/08, Commission c/ France (Rec. I.04195)). In the 2012 recommendation of the European Council to France, a list of professions for which restrictions and barriers to entry should be removed mentioned: ‘veterinarians, taxis, health sector, legal professions including notaries’ (Recommendation for a COUNCIL RECOMMENDATION on France’s 2012 national reform programme and delivering a Council opinion on France’s stability programme for 2012-2016 /* COM/2012/0313 final */).
- 26.
For instance on the regulations relative to hunting for which the minister is in competition with the agriculture department. See Rozenberg (2020a, chapter 4).
- 27.
See the special issue of the journal Pouvoirs (2019).
- 28.
For instance with the Justice ministers regarding the partial liberalisation of notaries, with the Labour minister regarding Sunday working and with the Home affairs ministers regarding driving licenses procedures.
- 29.
- 30.
Inspection générale des finances (2012).
- 31.
See Bezes et al. (2019).
- 32.
My translation from Halpern and Pollard (2017, p. 125). Comparing two sectors from the Grenelle, waste and housing, they observe both that the bargains within each of these fields followed their own logics and that log-rolls and equilibrium were sought at the level of each field rather then globally—a trend that undoubtedly leads to ‘monster bills’.
- 33.
On the discussed democratic virtues of parliamentarianism, see Rozenberg (2020b).
- 34.
The government uses it at it offers the possibility to call the conciliation committee after one reading instead of two.
- 35.
Source: https://www.lafabriquedelaloi.fr/ International agreements excluded. The bicameral system foresees that a conciliation committee composed of representatives from both assemblies can be called after one or two readings. In case of disagreement during this meeting, the National Assembly may have the last word after an ultimate reading in both chambers. Assemblies have able to vote the same bill without a conciliation committee for half of all bills but only 12% of the most heterogeneous ones and none of the biggest ones.
- 36.
Interview in Paris, 12 December 2005.
- 37.
- 38.
This ratio is more precise than the comparison of the simple size of the two versions of the bill. See Sieberer et al. (2016).
- 39.
For the first reading in the National Assembly, the special committee met during 72 h and plenary sessions for 111 h.
- 40.
As well established by the legislative studies literature, for instance Martin (2014).
- 41.
Lecomte et al. (2017).
- 42.
The first censure based on this claim dates back to 1989. The introduction in 2008 in the constitution that amendments with an ‘indirect link’ to the text were valid has not modified the Constitutional Council case-law. According to Chamussy (2014), 30% of the decisions of the Council were based on procedural issues in 1986–88 vs. 62% in 2007–12. The censure based on riders are especially numerous for the Finance Bill and Social Security Financing Bill. See also Marin (2018).
- 43.
Law n° 2018-938 of 30 October 2018 for the balance of trade relations in the agricultural and food sector and healthy, sustainable and accessible food for all, also called Egalim.
- 44.
Decision n° 2018-771 DC of the Constitutional Council of 25 October 2018. See Crevel (2019).
- 45.
Brouard (2009).
- 46.
In volume, it represents yet more censures as these bills are composed of a higher number of articles.
- 47.
Schofield (1989).
- 48.
Studies comparing policy fields have established how punctuated political attention is. See Jones and Baumgartner (2005).
- 49.
The example is borrowed from Bonnaud and Martinais (2013).
- 50.
This happened for the above mentioned Egalim law in 2018 which originally mainly aimed at ensuring a fair price to farmers and ended being focussed on the use of pesticides.
- 51.
In that sense, monster bills participate to a more general trend of denationalization that affects many different aspects of the French parliament. See Rozenberg (2019).
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Rozenberg, O. (2021). When Rationalisation of Bureaucracy De-rationalizes Laws and Legislatures: ‘Monster Bills’ in France. In: Bar-Siman-Tov, I. (eds) Comparative Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Omnibus Legislation. Legisprudence Library, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72748-2_5
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