Riflessioni su stabilità dell'Esecutivo e democrazia rappresentativa nei sistemi parlamentari dell'Europa occidentale

Aristide CANEPA: Riflessioni su stabilità dell’Esecutivo e democrazia rappresentativa nei sistemi parlamentari dell’Europa occidentale (Some Reflections about Stability of the Executive and Representative Democracy in the Parliamentary Systems of Western Europe) Abstract: The work is the result of prof. Canepa’s participation in a “Progetto di Ricerca di Interesse Nazionale” (National Interest Research Project) granted in 2006 by the Ministry of University and coordinated by prof. Michele Scudiero (University of Naples-“Federico II”), about “Stability of the Executive and representative democracy”. Prof. Canepa was part of the research unit of the University of Genoa, coordinated by prof. Adriano Giovannelli and in charge of “Stability of the Executive and representative democracy: comparative and European outlines”. Research Units from the Universities of Naples-“Federico II”, Cagliari, Milan and Calabria also took part in the research. Before the exposition of the work content, a little explanation is needed, regarding to the choice of the studied States. The work is focused on the parliamentary and semi-presidential regimes of the main States of Western Europe that never made experience of socialist regimes in their history: in this work, therefore, the concept of Western Europe is not to be regarded in a strictly geographical meaning, but in relation to the geo-political position of the same States before the fall of the Berlin wall. Through the analysis of constitutional texts, standing orders of the Parliaments and other sub-constitutional sources of law, as well as of political customs and usages, the work makes a survey of the main institutional solutions capable of influencing the sensitive balance between the need of stability of the Executive and guarantees for the representativeness of the democratic system. Among such institutional solutions, the work considers especially: the rationalisation of confidence relationship between Governments and Assemblies; the possible powers of the Executive in order to intervene in Parliament works and organization; legislative powers of the Executives and forms of the related parliamentary control; rules about the dissolution of Parliament; rules about the relations between Head of State and Prime Minister; rules about the election of the Head of State and about his/her powers; possible instruments of direct democracy and their influence on representative institutions’ working. Such a survey aims to represent the state of the art about the institutional balance between Executive and Legislative in the main democracies of Western Europe. But the work aims also to focus on the more recent trends in the matter, paying particular attention to the more significant constitutional reforms passed during the last decade in some of these democracies. Among them, the enforcement of the new Finnish Constitution in 1999-2000, the Greek Constitutional reforms of 2001 and 2008, the German one of 2006, as well as the several French reforms between 2000 and 2008 (paying particular attention to the last one, large and detailed) and the important institutional reforms passed in the United Kingdom between 1999 and 2005. Furthermore, a part of the work refers to the new institutional balance introduced in the governing bodies of European Union by the Treaty of Lisbon, although with full consciousness that the absolutely unique nature of the EU institutions (especially the political ones: European Parliament, Commission and Council) claims for a great caution in applying to them the interpretative categories usually adopted by the constitutional science. In conclusion, the exam of the more recent reforms seems not to allow to identify an unequivocal direction in the complex process of institutional evolution in the European continent; nonetheless, the work seems to identify a general drift to diminish both the tendency to the centrality of Parliament, in the systems traditionally more oriented to stress the representativeness of the democratic system, and the strong centrality of the Government, in the systems traditionally more oriented to stress the stability of the Executive. A good example of the first kind is the new Finnish Constitution of 1999-2000, where both the diminution of the powers of the President and the new rules on the confidence relationship between Parliament and Government play in favour of the Prime Minister. A good example of the second kind is the French constitutional reform of 2008, which undoubtedly enlarged and strengthened the powers of the Parliament.