Confidence and Control in Parliamentary Government: Parliamentary Questioning, Executive Knowledge, and the Transformation of Democratic Accountability
Confidence and Control in Parliamentary Government: Parliamentary Questioning, Executive Knowledge, and the Transformation of Democratic Accountability
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对议会政府的信心和控制：议会质询、行政知识和民主问责制的转变
DOI：
10.1093/ajcl/avy028
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发表时间：
2018
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Florian Meinel
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Florian Meinel
本文旨在提高我们对议会控制的制度条件的理解。控制的有效性是当代民主政治的一个关键问题。立法机构面临的挑战在不同的政治制度中是相似的：大多数涉及监督国际和超国家一级的行政决策以及控制国内和国际安全政策。宪法学者往往对所谓的议会控制的缺陷作出回应，声称透明度的一般原则，包括立法机关要求行政部门提供信息的广泛权力。本文认为，立法控制的政治力量取决于一些总体规范性原则，但在其运作的制度和程序框架。特别是，宪法将政府的三个独立分支分开，与议会制度相比，产生了完全不同的控制概念。议会宪法认为，控制不仅是对行政分支的一种制约，而且也是确保政府与议会中多数派和少数派不断对抗的一种手段。因此，议会控制的有效性和范围由内阁的体制理念决定。对美国、法国、德国和欧盟议会法的比较分析表明，程序规则在很大程度上反映了立法机关和行政机关之间各自的宪法关系。文章认为，议会控制只能通过加强宪法为此目的所规定的特殊制度特征来加强。由于宪法遵循议会制，这意味着立法控制的个人性质的加强。
This Article seeks to improve our understanding of the institutional conditions of parliamentary control. The effectiveness of control is a key concern of contemporary democratic politics. The challenges legislatures are facing are similar in different political systems: most involve oversight of executive decision making at the international and supranational level and the control of domestic and international security policies. Constitutional scholarship often responds to alleged deficiencies of parliamentary control by claiming a general principle of transparency, including broad powers of the legislature to request information from the executive. This Article argues that the political strength of legislative control depends less upon some overarching normative principle but on the institutional and procedural framework in which it operates. In particular, the constitutional separation of three independent branches of government yields an utterly different notion of control compared to parliamentary systems. Parliamentary constitutions understand control not only as a check upon the executive branch, but also as an instrument which secures the steady confrontation of the government with both majority and minority in the parliament. Effectiveness and scope of parliamentary control are, hence, defined by the institutional idea of the cabinet. A comparative analysis of American, French, German, and EU parliamentary law shows that procedural rules mirror to a large extent the respective constitutional relationship between the legislature and the executive. The Article argues that parliamentary control can only be strengthened by a reinforcement of the peculiar institutional features a constitution provides for this purpose. Insofar as a constitution follows the parliamentary type, this implies a reinforcement of the personal character of legislative control.