New House Speaker Demetris Syllouris’ announcement on Monday of a crackdown on deputy absenteeism by levying wage cuts for unjustified no-shows at plenary and committee sessions, which has been hailed as a radical reform effort, will simply see the enforcement of existing regulations, themselves little more than a half-measure.
According to parliament’s regulations, attendance at plenary and committee sessions is mandatory for all MPs and is recorded by the House secretary. The regulations stipulate that unjustified absences from the House plenum or committee sessions incur a range of penalties.
Deputies absent from two consecutive committee sessions, the rules say, lose a third of a monthly allowance of €1,945.75, which all deputies are entitled to just for showing up at parliament – this is in addition to the standard monthly wages of €3,640.33, as well as an allowance of €1,025.16 for secretarial services and an extra €683.44 per month for travel expenses.
Unjustifiably missing three consecutive committee sessions, or two consecutive plenary sessions, will lose a deputy half the allowance, while any more absences – always consecutive – will cost them the entire benefit for the month.
Per the rules, attendance shall be monitored on a monthly basis by a Regulation Compliance committee, comprising the House Speaker as chair and three members, who are tasked with poring over attendance sheets at the end of each month and assessing whether the reasons submitted by absent deputies are ‘justified’ or not.
The House Speaker must then forward the committee’s decisions on withholding part or all of a deputy’s monthly allowance, as the case may be, and the penalty is taken from the next month’s paycheck.
According to the rules, any deputy that intends to miss any session – plenary or committee – during the month must notify “where possible”, the Speaker in advance.
A deputy that has logged an absence but failed to notify the Speaker in writing as to the reason is automatically deemed unjustifiably absent – “unless he or she can satisfy the committee to the contrary”.
Written explanations for absences are to be assessed by the committee, which will make decisions on their validity on the basis of certain criteria, which include “health reasons, the death or serious illness of a family member, travel abroad for state purposes, or for private purposes, or any other purpose deemed legitimate by the committee”.
In other words, deputies may miss plenary or committee sessions without consequence, provided the absences are not consecutive, and as long as they can produce a doctor’s note or copies of plane tickets.
The only real news that came out of Syllouris’ announcement regarding deputies’ attendance records was that rules of operation for a fund, created especially to collect the penalties imposed on unjustifiably absent deputies, will be drafted.
