Regulatory Power in France Under 1958 Constitution

Extract

[...] This executive regulatory power to enforce laws must, however, be exercised obligatorily and within a reasonable timeframe, under penalty of condemnation of the administration to act under penalty, pronounced by the Council of State. The latter has ruled that the exercise of the executive regulatory power to enforce laws has the character of a constitutional obligation Ass Association France Nature Environnement) From an organic point of view, the Constitution of 4 October 1958 differs from the previous ones in organizing a bicameral executive and, as a result, sharing the exercise of the regulatory power. [...]

[...] Article 21 of the Constitution confers a general competence of principle in the exercise of regulatory power to the Prime Minister, subject to a number of non-negligible prerogatives falling to the President of the Republic (Article 13). The regulatory power in the Constitution of 4 October 1958 is therefore conceived according to a double acceptance: material (what is its scope?) and organic (who exercises it?). - How did the 1958 Constitution come to make the regulatory power the preferred means of issuing norms under the V5ème Republic? [...]

[...] It is also admitted by article 21 (paragraph that the Prime Minister may « delegate certain powers to the ministers. In practice, this provision is translated into delegations of signature. Furthermore, ministers may receive from the law the care of issuing regulations, they then act by means of decrees. Outside of these provisions, ministers do not have a regulatory power under the Constitution. They have simply been recognized, by way of jurisprudence, a general regulatory power of organization of their services (CE Jamart). [...]

[...] The consecration of an autonomous regulatory power The creation of an autonomous regulatory power is an innovation of the 1958 Constitution. In theory, this had the effect of substantially extending the scope of intervention of the Prime Minister since the executive power has its own normative domain. However, « This innovation, striking as it seemed in 1958, has not brought, in practice, the legal revolution that it operated in theory1. In practice, this power applies in situations where standards that would result from a domain other than those for which the Constitution gives jurisdiction to the law are necessary. [...]

[...] He is the principal holder of the regulatory power and exercises it by means of decrees called « simple or « after advice from the Council of State. However, this competence is exercised subject to the important attribution that article 13 confers on the President of the Republic, who is charged with signing ordinances and decrees decided by the Council of Ministers. Decrees are necessarily regulatory acts. As for ordinances, they are also regulatory acts until they are ratified by their Parliament.2. [...]