Covid-19: why the emerging public debt crisis needs urgent engagement by parliamentarians

As parliaments around the world adjust to working remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic, Franklin De Vrieze argues that it is vital that they not only scrutinise governments’ public health policies, but also have a role in overseeing the ensuing new public debt, particularly in developing countries

Preparing for the roll-back of Covid-19 emergency legislation: what needs to be done?

The Covid-19 pandemic has led many countries across the world to pass emergency legislation, but is there a danger that this legislation could lead to a permanent loss of civil liberties? Franklin De Vrieze explains what has to be done to prepare for the roll-back of these measures

Combating corruption in Ukraine: are the country’s parliament and anti-corruption agency up to the task?

Countries in transition increasingly count on anti-corruption commissions and agencies in the fight against corruption. Franklin De Vrieze and Luka Glušac examine the case of Ukraine, assessing the role of the country’s parliament and anti-corruption agency in combating high-profile corruption

Applying Post-Legislative Scrutiny to the Analysis of Legislation and SDGs in South and Southeast Asia

Post-Legislative Scrutiny (PLS) is an emerging oversight technique which is applied by parliaments to scrutinise implementation and impact of specific laws or legal frameworks. This article takes stock of PLS practices in countries in South and Southeast Asia and argues that PLS can also be used to scrutinise complex processes at the national or supra-national level, such as the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). First, a wide introduction and the state of play in PLS is provided, with reference to different parliamentary and development approaches emerging from the application of PLS in parliaments worldwide, followed by two specific case studies: the law on microfinance in Myanmar and the law on social practice reform in Nepal. The examination of these case studies offers insights about the application of scrutiny techniques in different parliaments. The outcome of the analysis is used to respond to the main research question of this contribution: whether PLS techniques can be applied for the oversight of extended processes, as is the case with the implementation of SDGs. For this, details of the first world study on parliamentary oversight of SDGs are presented, with a regional focus on South and Southeast Asia. The results seem to support the authors’ claim that PLS as a technique can facilitate oversight both of specific legal provisions and complex multi-stakeholder processes, such as the monitoring of SDGs

An organelle-specific protein landscape identifies novel diseases and molecular mechanisms

Contains fulltext : 158967.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Cellular organelles provide opportunities to relate biological mechanisms to disease. Here we use affinity proteomics, genetics and cell biology to interrogate cilia: poorly understood organelles, where defects cause genetic diseases. Two hundred and seventeen tagged human ciliary proteins create a final landscape of 1,319 proteins, 4,905 interactions and 52 complexes. Reverse tagging, repetition of purifications and statistical analyses, produce a high-resolution network that reveals organelle-specific interactions and complexes not apparent in larger studies, and links vesicle transport, the cytoskeleton, signalling and ubiquitination to ciliary signalling and proteostasis. We observe sub-complexes in exocyst and intraflagellar transport complexes, which we validate biochemically, and by probing structurally predicted, disruptive, genetic variants from ciliary disease patients. The landscape suggests other genetic diseases could be ciliary including 3M syndrome. We show that 3M genes are involved in ciliogenesis, and that patient fibroblasts lack cilia. Overall, this organelle-specific targeting strategy shows considerable promise for Systems Medicine

Shared genetic risk between eating disorder- and substance-use-related phenotypes:Evidence from genome-wide association studies

First published: 16 February 202

Not all scrutiny is equal: how parliaments vary in scrutinising the implementation of legislation

Parliaments can contribute to more accountable governance, not just by questioning government ministers in the chamber, but also by monitoring the implementation and impact of the laws they pass. This post-legislative scrutiny can be divided into four categories: passive, informal, formal and independent forms. Comparatively, parliaments vary according to the extent to which they carry out post-legislative scrutiny. Franklin De Vrieze discusses these variations and argues that to be effective parliaments should both look at the implementation of legislation, its impact and at unintended consequences of some laws. At the time of the Covid-19 crisis, good-quality scrutiny of policies and legislation in all areas, including legislation on public health and government’s response to Covid-19, has become all the more important