Surveillance by intelligence services – Volume II: field perspectives and legal update
8.3. Parliaments
Parliament has the “supreme responsibility to hold
the government accountable”. 240 As lawmaker, it is
responsible for enacting clear, accessible legislation
and establishing the intelligence services and their
organisation, special powers and limitations. It also
approves the intelligence services’ budget and plays
a strong role in scrutinising whether their operations
are in line with the laws they set out.
As illustrated in Figure 6, 26 EU Member States – all
except for Ireland and Malta – provide for parliamentary
oversight. 241 In 21 of these, special parliamentary
committees oversee the intelligence services. The
Venice Commission recommends setting up one
parliamentary committee to deal with the various
security and intelligence services, since this allows the
committee to carry out more far-reaching oversight and
to “cross agency boundaries”.242
In Germany, on 7 December 2016, the Act on the
Further Development of Parliamentary Oversight of
the Federal Intelligence Services (Gesetz zur weiteren
Fortentwicklung der parlamentarischen Kontrolle
der Nachrichtendienste des Bundes) came into
force, amending the Parliamentary Control Panel Act
(Kontrollgremiumgesetz, PKGrG). It established the
office of the Permanent Representative (Ständiger
Bevollmächtigter), with the task of supporting the
regular work and specific investigations of the
Control Panel and the Trust Panel.243 The Permanent
Figure 6: Parliamentary oversight of intelligence services in EU Member States
Several specialised parliamentary committees (2)
One specialised parliamentary committee (19)
Non-specialised parliamentary committee (5)
No committee (2)
Source: FRA, 2017
240 Born, H. (2003), p. 36.
241 In Malta, the law establishes a Security Committee, which
consists of the Prime Minister, the Minister, the Minister
responsible for Foreign Affairs and the leader of the
opposition. While introducing a parliamentary aspect, this
body seems closer to an executive body. See Malta, Security
Service Act 1996, Art. 14 and Schedule 2.
66
242 Venice Commission (2007), p. 33.
243 Germany, PKGrG, S. 5a. See Bartodziej, P. in Dietrich, J.-H.
and Eiffler, S. (eds) (2017), p. 1583 and following.