"It is said that accidents do not announce themselves, but this was a disaster that actually did sound the alarm," said sworn attorney and former chancellor of justice Allar Jõks on Wednesday's broadcast of the morning show "Terevisioon," referring to the incident surrounding amendments to the Gambling Tax Act. "What happened with the Gambling Tax Act is a sign of a systemic flaw — one that's built into both our political culture and the way we draft legislation."

According to Jõks, the flaw lies in the mindset that the coalition agreement takes precedence over good legislative practice.

"And this isn't just about the current coalition — it's been the same five years ago, ten years ago. It leads to a kind of apocalyptic atmosphere: if we don't pass this bill in two weeks or two months, it's the end of the world. That mentality erodes all oversight mechanisms, silences the opposition, ignores their input and this is the result. Honestly, it's a miracle it took this long to surface" he said.

He added that in a situation where most members of the Riigikogu don't understand the State Budget Act, there could be many more such errors lurking.

Jõks said this kind of political behavior stems from a belief among politicians, officials or even society at large that more rules equal a better life.

"It's like this: whenever there's a problem — people drink too much or they're gaining too much weight — the instinct is to immediately start regulating. Entrepreneurs are assumed to be crooks by default, so we slap on some restrictions and increase oversight. There's this strong belief in the power of law: that the more rules we create, the stronger a society we're building."

But the more rules you make, he said, the more you need to enforce them. "The more you start drafting norms, the more you have to justify them, add even more rules to explain how to enforce them and then rules for how to monitor the enforcers. In the end, you create a monster. I think that's a bigger problem than just one tax that now temporarily won't be collected."

At the same time, Jõks admitted he wants to know exactly how the current mistake made it into the law, as he doesn't believe it was simply human error.

"Instead of changing a number, someone added the word 'skill game' into a different section of the same act. That ended up meaning only skill games would be taxed — not games of chance. But that word didn't need to be there at all. Which raises the question: this couldn't have been a simple human error. If you change a comma, fine. If you write a four instead of a three — maybe. But when a change is written in like this, it raises serious questions."

Jõks stressed that he's not focused on blame, but on understanding how the error occurred and how to prevent similar mistakes in the future — which, he said, calls for a thorough investigation.

"This amendment didn't write itself. It wasn't the hand of God. A human being had to write that word in, which resulted in [online casinos] being exempted from taxation. I'm not concerned with who's at fault. I want to know why the error happened and how we can ensure we don't make the same mistake again."

Jõks also argued that responsibility in Estonia tends to vanish when things go wrong. "Whatever the topic — when something goes well, everyone's on the podium. But when something goes off the rails, you need a magnifying glass to find out who's responsible. Talk of 'collective responsibility' doesn't satisfy me and I don't think it satisfies any Estonian."

"Coming back to this particular error — I think it has two 'parents.' One is the person who wrote it into the bill and that needs to be found out. The other is whoever failed to catch it or review it," he added.

As such, Jõks said the opposition also bears some responsibility. "Right now, the opposition is beating its chest over how badly things were handled. But members of the Riigikogu vote on laws and those who vote against them still have a duty to point out problems, contact the president, raise red flags. That didn't happen with this bill. I'd advise the opposition to be a bit more modest here and instead focus on finding out where the error originated."

Commenting on Justice and Digital Affairs Minister Liisa Pakosta's idea to involve artificial intelligence (AI) in the legislative process, Jõks said that as a tool, it might not be a bad idea. "But if AI starts replacing members of the Riigikogu, then we have to ask: do we really need a 101-member parliament?" he added.

A clerical error in amendments to the Gambling Tax Act approved last December removed online casinos from taxation this year by using the term "skill games" and omitting "games of chance" in a key part of the text. A mistake that was missed by all links in the legislative drafting chain. 

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