Legal aspects of quality Michel ISNARD Insee – Legal Affairs

Legal aspects of quality Short introduction Legal aspects for an operation Legal aspects for the NSI

Introduction Anything illegal doesn’t exist Not following legal prescriptions lowered very much the quality of the whole operation Most seriously, not following legal prescriptions could endanger the position of the NSI in the society and have consequences on the quality of other results

Introduction Concerning single operations : Legal dispositions as a tool to manage an operation Concerning NSI as a whole : Legal dispositions and the NSI management

A single operation Legal prescriptions appear as safeguards on a single operation : quality minimal thresholds to be met Information of persons : In EU 95/46 directive, therefore a legal prescription A quality prerequisite : see ISI ethics declaration in 1985 Confidentiality

A single operation Major risks To forget legal dispositions are MINIMAL quality thresholds Quality could forbid a NSI to disseminate non confidential data To focus on legal aspects and not on methodological ones.

NSI as a whole Huge part of operations have a legal basis EU Regulation National Law Legal dispositions : What a NSI must do How a NSI must do it

NSI as a whole Problem of NSI overloading : Risk of loss of quality Problem of maintaining an overall quality Need to interfere with “must” legal dispositions Quite always the case in EU Regulations Could be more difficult in national ones

NSI as a whole “How” Legal dispositions General formation Could be mixed with non legal quality measures (incorporated as internal rules) Need to interfere with elaborations of “How” legal disposition

Some more points A strong legal basis help relations with respondents : Trust, Possible intervention of justice Standard rules of dissemination

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