Legal Impact Assessment
The Legal Impact Assessment ( GFA ) deals with the recording and analysis of the intended effects and undesired side effects of legal norms . The purpose of legal impact assessments is to make government action more effective, to limit government intervention to the necessary minimum and to include possible alternatives. According to §§ 43 Paragraph 1 No. 5, 44, 62, 70 Joint Rules of Procedure of the Federal Ministries GGO, the results of the assessment of the legal consequences are to be presented in the explanatory statement for the legal act and in the cover sheet when the draft is presented.
Legal Impact Assessment in Germany
Although the legislature has always pursued specific purposes when enacting every legal norm, the systematic recording and evaluation of probable and actual legal consequences is a relatively recent development. For example, the joint rules of procedure of the federal ministries only since September 1, 2000 provide that a legal impact assessment must be carried out when legal norms are formulated. Overall, there are three phases of legal impact assessment in German practice:
- Conceptual phase : initiation of the legal impact assessment - analysis of the regulatory field - development of alternative regulations - development of scenarios - selection and preparation of suitable instruments.
- Implementation phase : Workshops with experts and norm addressees , examination and, if necessary, modification of the regulation alternatives - assessment of the consequences of each regulation alternative using the instruments, if necessary against the background of the scenarios.
- Evaluation phase : evaluation, preparation and documentation including recommendations for an optimal regulatory alternative - selection of the regulatory alternative by political management level - decision on the progress of the legal impact assessment.
Legal impact assessment at EU level
A legal impact assessment is also carried out at EU level before the European Commission submits a proposal for a ( regulation or directive ). It is known as an Integrated Impact Assessment (integrated because both aspects of sustainable development and the effects on the addressees are considered). The Commission has put forward internal guidelines for this.
Legal Impact Assessment for the Environment
While the effects on companies or private individuals can be assessed relatively easily (in monetary terms, i.e. in euros), this assessment is more difficult when it comes to effects on environmental goods. Because environmental goods usually do not have a direct "price", other ways of quantifying the impact on the environment have to be found in order to be able to take them into account in the legal impact assessment.
See also
literature
- Carl Böhret , Götz Konzendorf: Handbook of Legal Impact Assessment (GFA). Laws, ordinances, administrative regulations . Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft 2001, ISBN 3-7890-7424-1 .
- Martin Brüggemeier, Klaus Lenk (Hrsg.): Reduction of bureaucracy in administrative execution. Better regulation between go-government and no-government . edition sigma, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-89404-842-6
- Stephan Hensel, Kilian Bizer, Martin Führ , Joachim Lange (Eds.): Legal Impact Assessment in Application - Perspectives and Development Trends . Nomos, Baden-Baden 2010, ISBN 978-3-8329-4486-5 , 341 pp.
- Kilian Bizer, Sebastian Lechner, Martin Führ (Eds.): The European Impact Assessment and the Environment . Springer, Heidelberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-642-11669-8 , 200 pp.
Web links
- Joint rules of procedure of the federal ministries in full . bmi.bund.de
- Modern state - modern administration. Guide to Regulatory Impact Assessment . (PDF; 458 kB)
- Impact Assessment in the Commission - Internal Guidelines on the New Impact Assessment Procedure Developed for the Commission Services . (PDF; 248 kB) europa.eu
- Improving the Integrated European Impact Assessment? (PDF; 176 kB) Executive Summary of the International Workshop, 15th – 17th September 2008 in Berlin, sofia-darmstadt.de
