The Constitutional Council rejects a referendum project on the public hospital

The Constitutional Council rejected Friday August 6 a draft referendum of shared initiative on “Universal access to a quality public hospital service”, considering that one of the articles of the bill is contrary to the Constitution.

The instance “Considers that the proposed programming law to guarantee universal access to a quality public hospital service does not meet the constitutional and organic conditions for opening the phase of the procedure known as the“ shared initiative referendum ”consisting in the collection of voters’ support “, writes the Council in a press release.

The judges had one month to rule on the admissibility of the bill tabled on July 7 and supported by more than two hundred deputies and senators from eleven opposition political groups. Parliamentarians from left and right wanted to defend with a single voice “A common good”.

The bill included eleven articles aimed at “Really allocate the necessary means to care”, in particular in “Beds and caregivers”, as well as “Define the fair terms and conditions of hospital funding” and to “Democratize its governance”.

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An article contrary to the Constitution

But the Constitutional Council cut their project short, ruling that an article of the bill was contrary to the Constitution.. In question, article 7 of the bill provided that the National Health Conference “Determines the activities, acts and care justifiable for the implementation of activity-based pricing by health establishments”.

On the other hand, add the magistrates in their decision, this article provided that “The decree in the Council of State, which fixes in particular the categories of services giving rise to invoicing for the activities of medicine, surgery, gynecology-obstetrics and odontology, [soit] taken “after the assent of the National Health Conference” ”. Gold, “These provisions, which subordinate to the assent of the National Health Conference the exercise of the regulatory power of the Prime Minister, are contrary to the Constitution”.

Supported by the association Notre hospital c’est vous, which brings together groups of caregivers and charitable NGOs – including inter-hospital and inter-emergency caregivers, but also Emmaus, Médecins du monde, the Salvation Army and Oxfam – , the main objective of the text was to increase the resources of hospitals, in particular in terms of “Beds and caregivers”.

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In a press release, the association regretted Friday that the project was rejected “For a technical reason, which concerns only one of the eleven articles of the bill” while the magistrates could have rendered a decision of partial non-compliance, “As was the case for example twenty-four hours ago for the bill on the health pass”. What “Would have allowed the RIP procedure to continue”.

“In the light of this ‘double standard’, Our hospital is you wondering about the reality of the possibilities offered by the shared initiative referendum procedure”, concludes the association, recalling that “Health news once again illustrates the urgency of the situation”.

To date, the only shared initiative referendum authorized by the Constitutional Council has ended in failure: in March 2020, less than 1.1 million people had opposed the privatization of Aéroports de Paris. For the proposed text to be examined by Parliament, it had to obtain 4.7 million signatures, those of 10% of the electorate.

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The World with AFP