President's Competence to Adopt Environmental Decree

Extract

[...] We can therefore qualify the adopted decree as an 'ordinary' decree in accordance with Articles 21 and 13 of the Constitution regulating respectively, the field of competence of the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic. In this case, it appears that the transposition decree does not fall within the field of competence of the President of the Republic. II. On the extended competence of the President of the Republic Question of law: Does a decree deliberated in council of ministers, in spite of any legal requirement, fall within the competence of the President of the Republic? [...]

[...] Is the President of the Republic competent to adopt a decree implementing an environmental European directive in the absence of any prior deliberation requirements in the Council of Ministers? Case Law: « The President of the Republic adopted a decree on September aimed at transposing, without going through a law, the unconditional and precise provisions of a 2024 European directive, which prohibits all tuna fishing in the Mediterranean outside of certain authorized periods. The National Committee for Maritime Fisheries, a trade union of professional fishermen, intends to challenge the legality of this decree before the Council of State and request its annulment. [...]

[...] Here, despite any legal requirement, it seems that this hypothesis is indeed being put into question. Therefore, if it is found that the decree has indeed been the subject of a deliberation in the Council of Ministers, it falls well within the competence of the President of the Republic. III. On the admissibility of the plea by the administrative judge Question of law: Does the plea of the President's lack of competence have any chance of being upheld before the judge? [...]

[...] Although rarely implemented. On the contrary, the President of the Republic does not, in principle, have a general regulatory power, except for hypotheses provided for in Article 13 of the Constitution. In accordance with these provisions, only decrees deliberated in council of ministers fall within his competence as soon as the legislator or the provisions of the Constitution impose it. The President of the Republic therefore holds a regulatory power that can be qualified as derogatory, that is to say, unlike the Prime Minister, it is not a principle competence. [...]

[...] On the principle competence of the Prime Minister Can the President invoke the competence to adopt a decree not subject to a deliberation in the Council of Ministers? In French law, the Council of State, since its decision « Fédération française des sociétés de protection de la nature » made in 1984 recognized the possibility of transposing a directive whose provisions are « sufficiently precise and unconditional » by decree. Moreover, the Prime Minister is in principle, according to the 1958 constitution, the authority holding general regulatory power. [...]