MISSIONS, ORGANIZATION AND WORKING OF
GENERAL SECRETARIAT OF THE GOVERNMENT
INTRODUCTION

The General Secretariat of the Government, body of the Presidency of the Republic placed under the direct authority of the President of the Republic, is directed by the Secretary General of the Government who is appointed by presidential decree in application of article 78-5 of the Constitution.

The presidential decree n°01-197 dated on July 22, 2001, which defines the missions and organization of the Presidency of the Republic structures, has recently confirmed the General Secretariat of the Government as a body placed under the authority of the President of the Republic and has sent the definition of its missions and working to specific texts.

It is the instrument of technical coordination of the governmental activity in legal matter and underlies the state’s normative organization.

MISSIONS

Within the framework of its missions, the General Secretariat of the Government is namely in charge of:

ORGANIZATION

In the exercise of his functions, the Minister, Secretary General of the Government is assisted by:

A Cabinet,

Sectors:

In charge of following the legal Activities of ministries and public institutions.

A direction of the Official Journal:

It assumes two essential tasks:

On the average, two Official Journals are published every week in the national language and its translation to French.

A Data Processing Service:

Its main mission is the computerization of the Official Journal through the establishment and the management of a data base from 1962 to this day and that, in the outlook of setting up a network of connection and access for all of institutions, administrations and public organisms.

The data that was created aims at listing, to filing, and exploiting all the texts published in the official journal. It helps thus, to find rapidly references and publication dates of the texts and to know all transformations they undergo.

Such data is used for the own purposes of the General Secretariat of the Government and also by the public administrations, institutions and other users.

The service is also in charge of following the maintenance of the data processing tool of the General Secretariat of the Government.

A Direction of the Codification:

It is in charge of assuming the codification - compilation of fundamental texts of the State for internal needs of the General Secretariat of the Government services.

This codification consists in simplifying of the legal texts in order to make them more accessible by their arrangement, their updating or re-organization.

A service of Nominations:

It is in charge of receiving propositions of nomination or end of function concerning officials of the State, to prepare texts, for signing by the authorized authorities and publication in the Official Journal.

A Direction of the General Administration:

This direction takes in charge the management of human, financial and material resources of the General Secretariat of the Government in view of providing the logistical support and assuring the best conditions of work for the whole structures and bodies of the General Secretariat of the Government.

It is also endowed with:

The Official Printing House:

It is a public establishment of industrial and commercial nature placed under its tutelage, it ensures:

This establishment also achieves in the setting of its commercial mission, the impression of all documents for the amount of a third party.

The central library:

Located in the <<Palais du Gouvernement>>, it is in charge of the management of documentary assets of the General Secretariat of the Government.

This documentary asset is put at the disposal of the ministerial departments, institutions, academics and researchers.

WORKING

The Minister, Secretary General of the Government ensures in the light of the legal coordination of activities of the Government to put in the final form of the legislative and authorized texts proposed by the ministerial departments before submitting them to the signing of authorities or transmitting them, according to the case, to institutions of adoption or control (Government meeting - Council of Ministers - Council of State -People’s National Assembly - Constitutional Council).

The process of dialogue and coordination of the normative activity of the Government takes place in several stages that contribute in their finality to assure a large involvement of members of the Government to the elaboration of texts and to guarantee the harmony and the legal device consistency to put in their place. In this setting, the Minister, Secretary General of the Government receives projects of legislative texts and decrees initiated by the ministerial authorities, he submits to the preliminary study by the specialized directions or sectors (of the General Secretariat of the Government) to check their conformity and their consistency with the laws in force and with the objectives that they are supposed to achieve.

Remarks and observations, if there exist, are carried to the knowledge of the initiating authority for an eventual taking up.

The submitted project, in its initial version is either modified on the basis of the observations formulated by the legal services of the Minister, Secretary General of the Government, or is distributed to the different ministerial departments who are called to make remarks both on the content and the form of draft.

Representatives of the Finance Ministry and those of the Authority in charge of the administrative reform and the civil service are associated imperatively to these meetings in view of the implications on financial matter or involvement in human means.

In the light of the received orientations, and on the basis of the remarks and observations given, the General Secretariat of the Government organizes meetings of work and coordination where are convened the representatives of the text initiating authorities and those of interested sectors.

In the light of coordination meetings and when a consensus is reached, the text is submitted to the procedure of adoption or signing by the authorities. If divergence persists, the text is submitted by the Minister, Secretary General of the Government Council for the procedure of arbitration.

Once adopted in the Government meeting, drafts of laws are transmitted to the Council of State by the Secretary General of the Government for opinion. The opinion, once given back, is transmitted by the mediator of the Minister, Secretary General of the Government to the Minister initiator and pin shape of the final draft of the law project to be submitted to the Cabinet meeting.

It is worth noting that the Secretary General of the Government has to take into account the previous legal advice of the International Financial Institutions to enable the implementation of loan agreements. He is also in charge of transmitting to the Foreign Affairs Minister instruments of ratification of international conventions and agreements. The Minister, Secretary General of the Government intervenes in the relations between the Government and the Parliament through:

The Minister, Secretary General of the Government, ensures in the shortest time limits, the publication of texts signed, in the Official Journal of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria.

Beyond these traditional missions, services of the General Secretariat of the Government carry out studies and contribute to the analysis of national or sector linked files in the light of the governmental program.