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3 Consultation

After the regulatory drafting step, the draft Government bill is circulated to stakeholders for comments. This procedure is usually observed also when consultation of stakeholders has been a part of the preliminary preparation and regulatory drafting steps. Government draft proposals are sent within normal request for statements procedure to the Finnish Council of Regulatory Impact Analysis in Finnish and concurrently circulated for consultation.

When comments are requested, a draft government proposal, a draft decree or a draft regulation, a memorandum including the reasons for the decree or regulation, and any other material necessary for understanding the contents of the proposed legislation shall be appended to the request. It is recommended to use Lausuntopalvelu.fi, which is a a service for responding electronically to official consultation.The request for comments is submitted to all known key stakeholders and published to afford other interested parties with an opportunity to comment as well.

A minimum of six weeks and in extensive projects a minimum of eight weeks shall be reserved for issuing comments requested concerning proposed legislation. The period is longer if it partly or entirely occurs during the general holiday season. The period may for justified reasons also be shorter than mentioned above. In that case, reasons for the duration of the period must be stated in the request for comments as well as in the government proposal and the presentation memorandum of a decree or a regulation.

Comments received through the different methods for consultation during the drafting process are written down in the project documents, for example in a report of a working group set up for the preparation, minutes of meetings or separate memorandums. In bill drafting, a summary of the consultation and the received comments is presented in the reasons for the government proposal.