Ogre City Council Expands Committees to 23 Members, Ministry Does Not Object 0 28

According to the Public Relations Department of VARAM, the current law "On Local Governments" — unlike the previous law "On Local Governments" — no longer sets limits on the number of committee members.

Previously, the law stipulated that in committees (except for the finance committee), the number of members should not exceed half of the council's composition, but now the law only specifies that there must be at least three members in a committee.

Thus, it is possible for each committee to include all elected council members.

At the same time, VARAM emphasizes that the main function of the committees is to prepare conclusions and questions for consideration at council meetings. The competence of the committees does not include making final decisions. Accordingly, all issues discussed in the committees are still submitted to the council for consideration along with the committee's opinion.

Considering this, it is necessary to assess how reasonable it is for all deputies to participate in all committees, the ministry notes.

In such a situation, deputies will have to reconsider at the council meeting each issue already discussed at the committee level, which will essentially lead to duplication of work.

The assessment of financial implications is also important. Deputies receive remuneration for participating in committee meetings, so increasing the number of committee members will incur additional costs for the local government, the necessity of which raises doubts, VARAM points out.

The ministry also confirms that the local government does not need approval from VARAM to make changes to its own regulations.

As previously reported, in executing the decision of the Administrative District Court, the Ogre local government plans to amend its regulations to allow all 23 deputies to participate in all six permanent committees, according to the draft amendments submitted for public discussion.

In the explanatory note to the regulatory act, the local government notes that the Administrative Appeals Court in its decision of October 2 does not find that the ruling of the Administrative District Court from August 15 in any way restricts the council's powers to form committees as provided by law, but indicates the need to change the composition of the committees in such a way that no deputy is discriminated against.

According to the local government, if all deputies participate in the work of the committees, the public will have confidence that the interests of all voters are taken into account in decision-making, rather than those of individuals. This will strengthen public trust in the work of the committees and will undoubtedly reduce the risk of them being perceived as "closed" or narrow groups.

The aim of developing amendments to the local government's regulations is to ensure more effective governance of the Ogre region by increasing the composition of all permanent committees to 23 deputies, which will completely eliminate any doubts about equal and proportional representation of deputies.