CADS10 Castellano. 2006 - Generalitat de Catalunya

3. Proposal for applying RIA in Catalonia
3.1. Background situation in Catalonia
3.1.1. The regulatory process in Catalonia
Regulatory process is taken to mean all the measures that lead to the creation
of a regulation, from the initiative until its publication or notification. The authority
to establish the regulatory process in Catalonia is regional. Therefore, when learning
about the main features of the regulatory process in Catalonia, we should adhere
to the Catalonian legal system and, in particular, the provisions of three rules:
the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia, the Regulations of the Parliament of
Catalonia and the Act 13/1989, dated 14 th December, on the organisation,
procedures and legal system of the administration of the Generalitat de Catalunya.
The first two rules refer specifically to the process of drawing up acts and the
third one refers to the process of drawing up regulations. Nevertheless, Act
13/1989, dated 14 th December, also applies to the process of drawing up
preliminary draft laws (article 66). Therefore, for drawing up bills to be submitted
by the government to the Parliament of Catalonia for processing and approval
as acts, and for drawing up and approving regulations, the procedure set forth
in Act 13/1989, dated 14 th December, must be followed. This procedure will
therefore be the basic subject of our analysis.
Act 13/1989 stipulates in its articles 61 to 66 the steps to be followed in the process
of drawing up regulations. Of the total of steps stipulated by law we would like
to highlight a series of points due to their relevance to our study. Therefore, in
terms of substance (contents), the following must be stressed:
a) Existence of a requirement relating to the need to perform an economic study
in the context of the documents and reports that support the report. This
study can be very transcendental, since it can add information to the
regulatory process regarding the economic impact of the regulatory project,
which can be taken into consideration by the government at the time of finally
approving the regulation. Nevertheless, it is notoriously difficult to perform
an economic study of this type (Legal Advisory Committee, Report 1/1999)
and it is rare for a regulation to be legally invalidated for not having performed
this process (Ponce, 2003).
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