Fifth Republic Governance and Parliamentary Responsibility

Extract

[...] 49-3 Original procedure for the government's responsibility engagement on a text. Articulation of the legislative procedure and political responsibility and combination of the flexibility of the confidence question and the constraints of using the censure motion for the opposition. The PM, at any time during the legislative procedure can engage the government's responsibility on the vote on the whole or part of the text. Now used to discipline its majority. Ex: in 2006, Dominique de Villepin interrupts thanks to article 49-3 the first (and only because of the state of emergency) reading by the deputies of the law establishing the CPE. [...]

[...] Avoided surprise effect: vote of the motion only 48 hours after its deposit. Allows the government to abstain from voting by deputies. Makes sense when it has a fragile or relative majority. Therefore, absolute parliamentary majority is required to adopt the motion (abstention = vote against). Difficult: only one motion has been adopted since 1958 (1962). It is more a way for the opposition to provoke a debate or to express on the public square its disagreement with the government policy than a possibility of overthrow of the government. ? [...]

[...] Does the Fifth Republic suffer from a democratic deficit? I. The Fifth Republic: a presidential governance with considerable prerogatives A and the presidential election by universal suffrage: the presidentialist orientation of regime The revision of the electoral mode of the head of state under the Fifth Republic has significantly modified the institutional balance by consecrating the predominance of the head of the executive power in the institutional landscape. This significant constitutional reform has thus raised the question of a democratic decline given the expansion of presidential prerogatives to the detriment of the parliament, the only institution emanating from the national body. [...]

[...] The mechanisms of parliamentary rationalization contribute to the establishment and to the maintain you phenomenon majority. The in go thus des dispositions relatives à the confiance, the possibility given to government of to ask a vote blocked. De even the arm de the dissolution entre les mains you Président plays in this sens. Deputies are encouraged to respect the majority discipline to avoid a return before the voters ». In as much as the government and the National Assembly are solidary, the protection of the boundaries between law and regulation is of no greater importance. [...]

[...] Of real means to challenge government responsibility in order to offset the democratic deficit ? The Fifth Republic: parliamentary regime where the government's responsibility before the AN. This responsibility can be organized in three different ways. ? Art. 49-1 Only the PM can engage the government's responsibility (requires a prior deliberation in the council of ministers and not its authorization). Outside of cohabitation, PMs have never felt obliged to engage their responsibility before the AN and even less to use it as a mechanism of investiture. ? [...]