COVID Module Question 21

Which of the following “fast track” procedures were used that limited legislative oversight during the crisis?

Guidelines
Countries around the world have followed very different procedures to introduce and implement emergency fiscal policy package. In some cases, existing procedures were used. In other circumstances, new procedures have been introduced, some of which may have reduced the legislature’s capacity to effectively oversee executive action in emergency response. This question assesses the extent to which some of these “fast track” procedures were applied that limited legislative oversight.

For a summary and description of the procedures listed in the answer options, please refer to: https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/view/?ref=137_137068-ud1l74u5hs&title=Legislative-budget-oversight-of-emergency-responses, specifically pp.6-9.

Tick boxes: ''Please check the boxes of the items that appear in the relevant documentation. If none of the items are presented, please check ‘None of the Above’. In the comment box, please provide a detailed citation for each item selected below as described in the assessment directions as well as any additional details.''


 * ☐  A State of emergency was declared.
 * ☐  Cabinet or individual ministers were empowered with emergency expenditure and law-making authority.
 * ☐  Fast-tracked parliamentary approval procedures were introduced
 * ☐  The role of the Upper Chamber was limited
 * ☐  The executive used extra-budgetary entities and other off-budget arrangements that bypassed regular legislative oversight
 * ☐  Not applicable (the country did not use any ‘fast track’ procedures that limited legislative oversight)

1) What if the role of the legislature in approving the EFPP differs than the overall role of the legislature during the crisis?
In Indonesia, the government issued a Regulation in March which essentially allowed govt. to circumvent budgeting process and limiting legislative oversight. This was approved by parliament in May (Law No. 2 of 2020). It relaxed the limit on deficit, allow more state spending (without debate) for relief efforts and new tax measures. The emergency fiscal policy package chosen by the researcher, the supplementary budget, was announced after this increase in executive authority, so the legislature was not involved in its approval.

In Question 20, the researcher responded on the basis of Law No. 2, and chose “Not applicable” (the legislature was not involved in the approval of the EFPP).

In Question 21, the researcher chose “State of Emergency” and “Cabinet or individual ministers were empowered with emergency expenditure and law-making authority”.

In Bangladesh, there was a similar situation (see data from the COVID module).

The conclusion is that we will respond to Questions 20 and 21 using the EFPP only (even if it differs from the overall role of legislature during the crisis). Researchers are welcome to note the overall role in comments.

2) What should countries that check “not applicable” on this question score?
“None of the above” was not listed as one of the answer options for this question, which asks if “fast track” procedures were used that limited legislative oversight during the COVID-19 pandemic. Theoretically, a country that had submitted its emergency fiscal policy package to parliament for approval should check “None of the above” here and score a 1, as this was the most positive response to the question (the scoring for this question was inverted compared to the other questions in the module, as more boxes checked here meant the country had more severely limited legislative oversight of its COVID-19 emergency fiscal policy package). However, since the option “None of the above” was not available, several countries that had provided adequate legislative oversight checked the box “Not applicable”, which led to a distortion in scores as "Not applicable" is only the case when there is no legislature, as in the case of Saudi Arabia. We went back and looked at the countries that had checked “Not applicable” here and in the case of a true “Not applicable” (Saudi Arabia) the question was dropped. However, in the case of countries that had submitted their emergency fiscal policy packages to the legislature, we scored them 1.