This is a presentation for the RES workshop on 7 May 2019 in Athens, Greece. It includes comments on the state of play in legislative drafting and assesses the possibility of utilizing lawsourcing to advance the interests of the RES community. Finally, the relatively new concept of Post Legislative Scrutiny (PLS) is presented. Both tools are discussed in the light of new developments in the energy sector.

1. Lawsourcing and
PLS in the area
of Renewable
energy
Dr. Fotis Fitsilis
Scientific Service
Hellenic Parliament
7 May 2019

2. Structure of presentation
1. Motivation
2. Lawsourcing: what is it?
3. Post Legislative Scrutiny (PLS): a new
parliamentary function?
4. Application in the area of renewable energy
2Structure

3. 1. Motivation
 State of play in standard legislative approaches
 Legislative follow up in the form of
parliamentary control
 The rise of PLS
 Necessity for new tools and methods
3Motivation

4. 2. Lawsourcing
 Legal crowdsourcing (“lawsourcing”)
 “Crowdsourcing” term coined in 2005 by How &
Robinson (Wired mag.)
 Prominent examples: Wikipedia & Kickstarter
 Prerequisites:
 Open call format
 Large network of laborers
 A viable means of “production”
4Lawsourcing

5. Application in the area of law
 Crowdsourced funding of lawsuit (see Dorian
Nakamoto v. Newsweek)
 Crowdsourced constitution (see Icelandic
constitutional process)
 Crowdsourced legislation (see relevant effort from
California Assemblyman Mike Gatto on probate
legislation)
 method to achieve (legal) goals & reforms
5Lawsourcing

6. 3. Post Legislative Scrutiny
 Evaluating laws or administrative acts is a standard
parliamentary function
 Parliamentary control / oversight
 Level of capacity in parliaments may vary
 Written and oral questions
 In need of a new parliamentary function?
6PLS

7.  A recent development
 Strengthens the
parliamentary oversight on
the implementation of
legislation
 May increase parliaments’
leverage against the
executive
 Broad concept along two
main lines:
1. the legal dimension
assessing the enactment of
the law and
2. the impact dimension
assessing to what extent
the policy objectives of the
law have been met
What is PLS?
‘The act of evaluating laws that
a parliament has passed’
(De Vrieze & Hasson 2017)
7PLS

8. 4. Application in the area of RES
 Copying from the workshop’s topics for
discussion
 Session II: Regional Consultations & Policy
Issues
 “Enabling legal and regulatory conditions for the
uptake of models for renewable energy
aggregation”
 “RES policy for Med Area & Islands”
8Application

9. Forms of application
Lawsourcsing
 Access the knowledge
of the entire expert
base
 Work beyond official
public consultation
platforms and
channels
 Use the leverage of
the RES community
PLS
 Exercise pressure to
policy and law makers
 Help establish new ways
of parliamentary scrutiny
 Aim at participatory
approaches
9Application

10. The end
(or just a new beginning?)
For more information contact me:
 fitsilisf@parliament.gr (institutional)
 fotis@fitsilis.gr (personal)
 https://fitsilis.gr (personal web)
 https://hellenicOCRteam.gr (crowdsourcing
platform)
10The end