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Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2022

The Hyper-Executive State of Emergency in France

Résumé

In France, the management of the Covid-19 crisis has deprived the Parliament of its - already weak - power. The crisis has been from the beginning managed by the President of the Republic and his Prime Minister. In particular, a 16 March 2020 Decree requires general lockdown for all inhabitants and suspends most of the civil liberties. This Decree is based on the traditional case-law of administrative courts about “exceptional circumstances”. The Executive decided to give legal basis to these regulations, with the 23 March “emergency” Statutory Law “to face the Covid-19 epidemic”. This text is certainly democratic, because it was passed by the deputies and the senators and because it provides that both Houses of Parliament shall be informed about the measures taken by government, and shall be able to require any further information. But parliamentary majority - under the grip of the President of the Republic - will not set up a proper committee of inquiry… This statutory law raises furthermore problems of form and substance. On the form, the bill was passed precipitously and under exceptional conditions. Article 46 of the Constitution was violated, but the constitutional judges didn’t reject the law, what is a problem in terms of Democracy and Rule of law. On the substance, the bill enacts a new state of emergency, the “health emergency”. It increases the powers of the Prime Minister and of the Minister of Health, and affects more intensively the rights and freedoms. The Members of parliament are empowered to vote only after one month, in order to extend it or not. That means that French Prime Minister has nearly full decision-making powers during the “health emergency”. The government has been therefore criticized.

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Dates et versions

hal-04323035 , version 1 (05-12-2023)

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Paternité - Pas d'utilisation commerciale - Pas de modification

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-04323035 , version 1

Citer

Sylvia Brunet. The Hyper-Executive State of Emergency in France. Matthias C Kettemann, Konrad Lachmayer. Pandemocracy in Europe: Power, Parliaments and People in Times of COVID-19, Bloomsbury Publishing (Hart Publishing), 2022, 9781509946365. ⟨hal-04323035⟩
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