European here, I was always confused watching U.S. Senate hearings with social media CEOs having to explain and be almost interrogated and accused of someone’s suicide from supposedly “watching content on the platform”. Why do they need to do that and is it only U.S. thing or does it happen somewhere else?
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People are giving you terrible answers. The EU Commission and EU Parliament can both invite *and compel* CEOs and other public figures to testify, *and they regularly do so*. As a governmental body, the EU government moves very slowly because it requires so much consensus-building, *and* because everything must be translated into multiple languages. The EU will often accept written testimony when it’s doing investigatory hearings — but the EU Parliament in particular loves it some high-stakes CEOs making asses of themselves, or CEOs refusing to show up and justifying further investigations thereby. Here’s [Musk](https://www.barrons.com/news/eu-parliament-invites-musk-to-testify-01671488108) invited, here’s [Zuckerberg](https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/zuckerberg-testimony-european-parliament/index.html) testifying, here’s the [CEO of Pfizer](https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/pfizer-ceo-albert-bourla-pulls-out-scheduled-european-parliament-committee-testimony) refusing to testify and the EU deciding [NOT to pull Pfizer’s access](https://www.euractiv.com/section/health-consumers/news/pfizer-retains-access-to-eu-parliament-despite-vaccine-purchase-controversy/) to the EU Parliament, which is actually a pretty huge sanction, because it means the company can’t participate in any lobbying or rulemaking or information-seeking about their sector. (Like, if I’m Pfizer, I want to be able to talk to the EU’s regulators about what I need from them to get my Covid vaccine on the market ASAP.)
Current US Senate hearings are extremely performative, and that has to do with television and hyperpolarization. But both houses of Congress in the US have essentially always had the power to subpoena anyone (order them to attend a legal proceeding) under US jurisdiction. (There’s a line of case law developing this, as well as various statutory support, but it’s basically existed since the US existed, which is the key point.) This power is used for a variety of purposes, but in particular for 1) investigating issues of national importance, that Congress may want to write legislation about or that may be ongoing problems; 2) investigating governmental (especially executive branch) function and behavior and whether they’re doing their jobs right; and 3) investigating potential criminal behavior, or preparing for impeachment when that is Congress’s purview. You can fight a Congressional subpoena in court, as you can fight any subpoena. You can also choose to ignore it, and hope you won’t be held in contempt.
The Congressional subpoenas and hearings that draw the most interest tend to be those that relate to issues of national interest, because that gets press coverage. In the 20th Century, there were major Congressional hearings with widely-publicized testimony included one on betting in college sports, a couple involving investigations of doping in baseball, and (of course) Nixon and Watergate. But there have been hundreds of others, that just aren’t as interesting. Congress regularly compels less-public figures to come provide testimony on issues of public interest, or allegations of public wrongdoing. (Lots of bank subpoenas from Congress over the last 15 years or so, many not super-interesting to the press because they get pretty technical.)
All UK-descended common-law systems have the power to compel anyone in their jurisdiction to testify before the legislature. Most European systems have this power as well, although often somewhat more circumscribed by evidence-gathering procedures in Civil Law courts. But one of the key points is “jurisdiction” — if you’re Mark Zuckerberg, you probably don’t want to be throw in jail for contempt of Congress, but if France threatens you, you can just … not go to France (so they can’t arrest you), and dare them to shut down your company for not appearing.
Generally all of these hearings are under oath, so you either have to tell the truth and put it on the public record … or lie and put it on the public record, and invite criminal prosecution for perjury. (And encourage further discovery into your documents and e-mails.)
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