Press release 24 October 2017
Friends of Malmi Airport
No constitutional obstacle to Lex Malmi
The Parliament’s Constitutional Law Committee has made its statement about Lex Malmi to the Transport and Communications Committee. The Lex Malmi citizens’ law initiative aims to protect the activities of Helsinki-Malmi Airport, a recognized significant cultural heritage site.
The Constitutional Law Committee sees no constitutional obstacle to passing Lex Malmi. The statement was specifically requested on the point of view of municipal autonomy and protection of property.
The statement finds that, as the initiative only proposes one limitation on one specific area, it does not entail such an infringement on constitutionally guaranteed municipal autonomy that would in fact make autonomy a moot point. Thus, the initiative cannot be considered to violate Paragraph 121 of the Constitution.
In addition, the Committee’s statement points out that according to the established legislative procedure, municipalities are not covered by the protection of basic rights. Municipalities do not have the protection of property that is guaranteed in the Constitution. The regulations proposed in Lex Malmi are not problematic from the point of view of constitutional protection of property.
The Committee does not find the initiative to be completely without problems because the text does not yet fulfill all the points pertaining to legislative methods and content. Passing the law is likely to require further preparation related to, e.g., polishing the points of legislative technique or assessing the impacts. The Constitutional Law Committee suggests the further preparation to be undertaken by the Cabinet.
In the practices of the Committee, however, cases of individual nature have not been considered to pose an actual contradiction with the Constitution. The Committee suggests that “the law initiative can be processed in the order of enactment of ordinary laws only if the committee’s points on constitutional law are properly taken into account.”
The Chairman of Friends of Malmi Airport, Mr. Timo Hyvönen, thanks the Constitutional Law Committee for doing a thorough job.
“The matter is important to citizens and all of Finland. The need to clarify some points detected by the Committee are a good support and very important now that the matter will proceed to Parliament. The statement is like we expected because Malmi Airport is not a matter of just one municipality. It has supra-municipal, national and international significance.”
Helsinki-Malmi is by far the busiest general aviation airfield in Finland. The aviation activities consist mainly of aviation work and pilot training. The airport is also on important center of hobby aviation, which makes up about 20-30% of the activities. The airport is operated by the Malmi Airfield Association.
More information:
Friends of Malmi Airport
Chairman Timo Hyvönen
puheenjohtaja@malmiairport.fi
tel. +358 50 374 8371
Links:
Statement of the Constitutional Law Committee (in Finnish)
https://www.eduskunta.fi/FI/vaski/Lausunto/Sivut/PeVL_41+2017.aspx
Lex Malmi citizens’ law initiative (in Finnish)
https://www.lexmalmi.fi/
Friends of Malmi Airport
http://www.malmiairport.fi/en
Malmi Airfield Association (operator)
https://www.efhf.fi/?lang=en