( article 124 of the Standing Orders )

 

The Plenum exercises parliamentary control at least twice a week by virtue of  article 53 par. 1. of the Standing Orders. Recess sections exercise parliamentary control, pursuant to  par. 1 of article 29 of the Standing Orders, and standing committees under  article 128Β and onwards.

 

Parliamentary control means, other than a censure motion (art. 142) include: a) petitions, b) questions, c) current questions, d) applications to submit documents, e) interpellations and f) current interpellations, g) investigation committees.

Documents by means of which Parliamentary control is exercised are submitted to Parliament and ought to mention which Minister they are addressed to. The appropriate Hellenic Parliament Department shall enter them by date (in chronological order) to special volumes, one for each different category, numbering them in continuous sequence. The Minister receives a copy of the document submitted, i.e. of the parliamentary control medium used. Parliamentary control means and written responses to such means may be also come in electronic format.

 

Should Ministers to whom the document is addressed deem it is not within their competence to reply, they should transmit the aforementioned document, within deadlines set by articles 125 par. 5 or 126 par. 4 of the Standing Orders, to the competent minister At the same time a copy of the transmitted document is forwarded to the relevant agency of the parliament and to the MP who initially exercised parliamentary control. In this case the deadline for a reply starts five days posterior to the date of the forwarded document.

 

Parliamentary control means shall be processed within the regular session they were presented, with the reservation of articles 130 and 138 of the Standing Orders. Should parliamentary control means not have been debated until the end of the regular session, they may be submitted anew in which case their sequence number in the respective archives is determined by the order in which they were submitted.

 

The deadline for submitting or re-submitting the same means of parliamentary control in the interval between two regular sessions starts one day after the Recess Section resumes (with the reservation of articles 125 par. 6, 126 par.5, 130 par. 8 and 138 par.2.) In such a case their sequence number depends on the order in which they were submitted or resubmitted and the deadline for a response starts the day after the new Plenum resumes its work (with the reservation of articles 125 par. 6 και 126 par. 5.)

Lists and tables on relevant documents for exercising parliamentary control under par. 4 are forwarded to MPs regularly.

To assist the Plenum or the Recess Section with their parliamentary control workload, standing committees also exercise capacities as specified in article 41A of the Standing Orders.