The cornerstone of unity

2 CONSTITUTIONAL LAW COMMITTEE
Finland has no constitutional court, but the constitutionality of new laws is deliberated during their enactment by 
the Constitutional Law Committee, which is one of the Finnish Parliament’s (innovation no. 1) sixteen special 
committees. It became a permanent body in the parliamentary reform of 1906. The main task of the special 
committees is to prepare matters for decision-making in plenary sessions. 
The Constitutional Law Committee prepares matters for plenary sessions related to enacting, amending or 
abolishing constitutional laws. The Committee also prepares matters pertaining to legislation closely related to 
constitutional laws. These include election laws, legislation concerning the highest organs of government, and 
matters involving the self-government of the Åland Islands (innovation no. 12), citizenship, language (innovation 
no. 11) and political parties (innovation no. 19). 
The composition of reports to plenary has however been only a secondary function of the Committee during 
recent electoral periods; it is currently mainly concerned with issuing statements on matters prepared in other 
special committees. The number of statements issued has increased during the time of the last government: in 
1999
– 2002 the committee gave 199 statements and in 2011 – 2014 altogether 184, compared to only 51 in 
1987
–1990. 
According to section 74 of the Finnish Constitution, “the Constitutional Law Committee shall issue 
statements on the constitutionality of legislative proposals and other matters brought for its consideration, as 
well as on their relation to international human rights treaties.” In addition, section 38 of the Finnish 
Parliament’s Rules of Procedure state that “if, in respect to a legislative proposal or another matter under 
preparation in a committee, a question arises concerning its constitutionality or relation to human rights treaties, 
the committee shall request a statement on the matter from the Constitutional Law Committee.” These 
provisions provide a systematic framework for the constitutional control of matters debated in Parliament. The 
particularity of this Finnish system is that constitutional control is anticipatory and is executed by an organ 
elected by Parliament from among its own members. This particularity can be explained by the fact that the 
system was created about 150 years ago. 
In executing constitutional control the Committee functions as a judicial organ that interprets the constitution, 
and it executes a similar “apolitical” role when it delivers its report to plenary sessions on e.g. the illegality of a 
minister’s procedure or the judicial preconditions for the dismissal of an MP. Regardless of these kinds of judicial 
functions, the Committee’s composition is similar to all other special committees in that it represents the 
parliamentary balance of power. 
The impartiality of the Constitutional Law Committee in judicial matters within its jurisdiction is ensured by 
several factors. In matters related to the Constitutional Law Committee’s judicial interpretations, parliamentary 
factions do not make group decisions that the committee members would have to follow. Neither do ministers 
attempt to affect the independence of Committee members’ actions. Discretion on constitutional matters is truly 
left to members of the Constitutional Law Committee. The Committee tries to make its actions consistent with its 
previous decisions. 
In each separate matter regarding constitutional interpretation, the Committee listens to several constitutional 
law experts from different universities to help them reach a decision. The experts present a review of the 
Committee’s interpretation policy and their own well-founded recommendations on how to interpret the 
constitution with regards to the matter in question. 
The experts’ opinions are seldom identical in all respects. The Committee does not necessarily adopt the 
majority opinion, but on the other hand it cannot really disagree with a unanimous group. The experts’ 
recommendations and arguments provide the Committee members with a certain kind of framework for their own 

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opinions. These are later debated and developed in Committee meetings, and the vast majority of recent 
statements have been unanimous. However, should a member be of a different opinion, he or she has the right 
to include a minority report in the Committee’s statement. 
In its statement the Committee presents e.g. an evaluation of the constitutionality of a legislative proposal. If it 
considers the proposal to be in conflict with the Constitution, the statement includes indications on how the 
proposal should be amended to guarantee its constitutionality. The amendments suggested by the Committee 
do not have the form of an act, but they describe the objective of the amendment and possibly include an 
example of how that objective could be achieved. In practise, the other special committees comply with the 
Committee’s observations. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the Speaker of the Parliament to ensure that 
plenary debate on the matter complies with the Constitution. 
Generally speaking, the Committee enjoys full confidence in the propriety of its constitutional interpretations. 
Any lack of confidence would be problematic because the anticipatory control executed by the Committee was 
for a long time the only form of constitutional legal control. In accordance with the Finnish Constitution, which 
was established in 1919, the analysis of the constitutionality of laws was not within the jurisdiction of the judicial 
courts, although this situation later changed. Section 106 of the new Finnish Constitution from 2000 states that 
“If, in a matter being tried by a court of law, the application of an act would be in apparent conflict with the 
Constitution, the court shall give precedence to the provision in the Constitution.” 
The success of the Constitutional Law Comm
ittee’s constitutional control is illustrated by the fact that, during 
the first six years of the new Finnish Constitution, there has been only few cases in which a court of law has 
given precedence to the Constitution in respect of the provision of an act. 
Jarmo Vuorinen 
– deputy secretary general of the Finnish parliament