DOCSLIB.ORG

Constitutional Reform and the Arab Spring

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Constitutional Reform and the Arab Spring Semi-Presidentialism as Power Sharing Semi-Presidentialism as Power Sharing: Constitutional reform after the Arab Spring Center for Constitutional Transitions at NYU Law International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance Sujit Choudhry Cecelia Goetz Professor of Law, NYU School of Law Faculty Director, Center for Constitutional Transitions at NYU Law Richard Stacey Director of Research, Center for Constitutional Transitions at NYU Law Hauser Global Research Fellow, NYU School of Law with Hannah Bloch-Wehba, Sam Chaffin, Daniel Hanna, Shingira Masanzu, Morgan Miller and Akila Ramalingam Copyright 2014 Center for Constitutional Transitions and International IDEA The electronic version of this publication (excluding the cover photos) is available under a Creative Commons License (CCI) – Creative Commons Attribute-Non Commercial- Share Alike 3.0 Licence. International IDEA publications are independent of specific national or political interests. Views expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the views of International IDEA, its Board or its Council members. ISBN: 978-91-87729-41-6 1 The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) is an intergovernmental organization with 28 member states that supports sustainable democracy worldwide. International IDEA’s mission is to support sustainable democratic change by providing comparative knowledge, assisting in democratic reform, and influencing policies and politics. International IDEA produces comparative knowledge in its key areas of expertise: electoral processes, constitution building, political participation and representation, and democracy and development, as well as on democracy as it relates to gender, diversity, and conflict and security. IDEA’s work is non-prescriptive; IDEA takes an impartial and collaborative approach to democracy cooperation, emphasizing diversity in democracy, equal political participation, representation of women and men in politics and decision making, and helping to enhance the political will required for change. IDEA brings together a wide range of political entities and opinion leaders. By convening seminars, conferences and capacity-building workshops, IDEA facilitates the exchange of knowledge and experience at global, regional and national levels. International IDEA is a Permanent Observer to the United Nations. For more information, please visit www.idea.int. 2 Semi-Presidentialism as Power Sharing The Center for Constitutional Transitions at NYU Law (Constitutional Transitions) generates and mobilizes knowledge in support of constitution building. Agenda-Setting Research: Constitutional Transitions generates knowledge by identifying issues of critical importance to the success of constitutional transitions, where a lack of adequate, up-to-date research impedes the effectiveness of technical assistance for constitution building. Constitutional Transitions assembles and leads international networks of experts to complete thematic research projects that offer evidence-based policy options to practitioners. Constitutional Transitions Clinic: Constitutional Transitions mobilizes knowledge through an innovative clinical programme that provides ‘back office’ research support to constitutional advisers in the field, and deploys faculty experts and field researchers for support on the ground. The Clinic meets existing field missions’ needs for comprehensive research, dramatically enhancing their effectiveness and efficiency in their role as policy advisers and actors. The Constitutional Transitions Clinic’s client for 2012–14 is the West Asia and North Africa Office of International IDEA, which it has supported with over 40 student researchers from 11 countries based at NYU and stationed in Beirut, Cairo and Tunis. For more information, please visit www.constitutionaltransitions.org. 3 About this report The Constitutional Transitions Clinic ‘back office’ is preparing a series of thematic, comparative research reports on issues in constitutional design that have arisen in the Middle East and North Africa. Zaid Al-Ali, Senior Adviser on Constitution Building at International IDEA, has acted as an adviser on these reports, and has overseen International IDEA’s participation in the report-drafting process. These reports will be jointly published by Constitutional Transitions and International IDEA in English and Arabic, and will be used as engagement tools in support of constitution-building activities in the region (e.g. in Libya, Tunisia and Yemen). The forthcoming reports are: Constitutional Courts after the Arab Spring: Appointment Mechanisms and Relative Judicial Independence (Spring 2014) Semi-Presidentialism as Power Sharing: Constitutional reform after the Arab Spring (Spring 2014) Political Party Finance Regulation: Constitutional reform after the Arab Spring (Spring 2014) Anti-Corruption: Constitutional Frameworks for the Middle East and North Africa (Fall 2014) Decentralization in Unitary States: Constitutional Frameworks for the Middle East and North Africa (Fall 2014) Oil and Natural Gas: Constitutional Frameworks for the Middle East and North Africa (Fall 2014) The reports will be available at www.constitutionaltransitions.org and www.idea.int. An Arabic translation of the reports is forthcoming. For more information, please visit www.constitutionaltransitions.org. 4 Semi-Presidentialism as Power Sharing Acknowledgments The authors of this report wish to thank Anis Abidi (International IDEA), Jennifer Canose (NYU School of Law), Robert Elgie (Dublin City University), Katherine Glenn Bass (NYU School of Law), Ahmed Ouerfelli (Office of the President of Tunisia) and Chafik Sarsar (University of Tunis–El Manar). The views expressed in this report, and any errors it contains, are the responsibility of the authors alone. Many of the ideas that are set out in this report were tested in a conference that took place on 8 April 2013 at the University of Tunis–El Manar, which was attended by Tunisian academics, postgraduate law students, members of the Tunisian Constituent Assembly and legal advisers to the Tunisian state. We are grateful for the helpful suggestions offered by the conference participants. This report has been prepared by the Center for Constitutional Transitions at NYU Law, affiliated with the New York University School of Law, but does not purport to present the school’s institutional views, if any. All English-language translations of documents referred to in this report are unofficial, unless otherwise noted. 5 Contents About this report .................................................................................................... 4 Acknowledgments .................................................................................................. 5 Contents ................................................................................................................ 6 Executive summary ................................................................................................ 9 Recommendations ............................................................................................... 16 Part 1: Introduction.............................................................................................. 23 Part 2: Three constitutional failures ...................................................................... 25 2.1 A strong president ........................................................................................ 25 2.1.1 Presidential longevity ................................................................................... 26 2.1.2 Emergency powers ....................................................................................... 27 2.1.3 Executive control of the legislature and legislative process .......................... 29 2.2 A weak legislature incapable of checking executive power ............................... 30 2.2.1 President’s dissolution powers ...................................................................... 30 2.2.2 Legislative initiative ..................................................................................... 31 2.2.3 Government formation and dismissal .......................................................... 31 2.3 The one-party state ...................................................................................... 32 2.3.1 Consequence of the one-party state ............................................................. 34 Part 3: Principles of constitutional design .............................................................. 35 3.1 Guarding against presidential autocracy ........................................................ 35 3.2 Legislative oversight of the executive ............................................................. 35 3.3 Power sharing .............................................................................................. 36 3.4 Executive leadership ..................................................................................... 37 3.5 Caveat: electoral system design ..................................................................... 39 Part 4: The constitutional design of semi-presidential government ......................... 41 4.1 France and Russia: successful and failed cases of semi-presidentialism............ 41 4.1.1 France ........................................................................................................... 41 4.1.2 Russia ..........................................................................................................
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Parliamentary, Presidential and Semi-Presidential Democracies Democracies Are Often Classified According to the Form of Government That They Have
    Parliamentary, Presidential and Semi-Presidential Democracies Democracies are often classified according to the form of government that they have: • Parliamentary • Presidential • Semi-Presidential Legislative responsibility refers to a situation in which a legislative majority has the constitutional power to remove a government from office without cause. A vote of confidence is initiated by the government { the government must resign if it fails to obtain a legislative majority. A vote of no confidence is initiated by the legislature { the government must resign if it fails to obtain a legislative majority. A constructive vote of no confidence must indicate who will replace the government if the incumbent loses a vote of no confidence. A vote of no confidence is initiated by the legislature { the government must resign if it fails to obtain a legislative majority. A constructive vote of no confidence must indicate who will replace the government if the incumbent loses a vote of no confidence. A vote of confidence is initiated by the government { the government must resign if it fails to obtain a legislative majority. The defining feature of presidential democracies is that they do not have legislative responsibility. • US Government Shutdown, click here In contrast, parliamentary and semi-presidential democracies both have legislative responsibility. • PM Question Time (UK), click here In addition to legislative responsibility, semi-presidential democracies also have a head of state who is popularly elected for a fixed term. A head of state is popularly elected if she is elected through a process where voters either (i) cast a ballot directly for a candidate or (ii) they cast ballots to elect an electoral college, whose sole purpose is to elect the head of state.
    [Show full text]
  • The Protean Nature of the Fifth Republic Institutions (Duverger)
    University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap This paper is made available online in accordance with publisher policies. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item and our policy information available from the repository home page for further information. To see the final version of this paper please visit the publisher’s website. Access to the published version may require a subscription. Author(s): Ben Clift Article Title: The Fifth Republic at Fifty: The Changing Face of French Politics and Political Economy Year of publication: 2008 Link to published article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09639480802413322 Publisher statement: This is an electronic version of an article published in Clift, B. (2008). The Fifth Republic at Fifty: The Changing Face of French Politics and Political Economy. Modern & Contemporary France, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 383-.398. Modern & Contemporary France is available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cmcf20/16/4 Modern and Contemporary France Special Issue - Introduction Dr. Ben Clift Senior Lecturer in Political Economy, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK Email: [email protected] web: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/staff/clift/ The Fifth Republic at Fifty: The Changing Face of French Politics and Political Economy. At its inception, a time of great political upheaval in France, it was uncertain whether the new regime would last five years, let alone fifty. The longevity of the regime is due in part to its flexibility and adaptability, which is a theme explored both below and in all of the contributions to this special issue.
    [Show full text]
  • Final Communique
    ECONOMIC COMMUNITY OF COMMUNAUTE ECONOMIQUE WEST AFRICAN STATES DES ETATS DE L'AFRIQUE ^ DE L'OUEST WENTY SIXTH SESSION OF THE AUTHORITY OF HEADS OF STATE AND GOVERNMENT Dakar, 31 January 2003 Final Communique • J/v^ u'\ Final Communique of the 26m Session of the Authority Page 1 1. The twenty sixth ordinary session of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), washeid in Dakar on 31 January 2003. underthe Chairmanship of His Excellency Maitre Abdoulave Wade, President of the Republic of Senegal, and current Chairman of ECOWAS. 2. The following Heads of State and Government or their duly accredited representatives were present at the session: His Excellency Mathieu Kerekou President of the Republic of Benin His Excellency John Agyekum Kufuor President of the Republic of Ghana His Excellency Koumba Yaila President of the Republic of Guinea Bissau His Excellency Charles Gankay Iayior President of the Republic of Liberia His Excellency Amadou Toumani Toure President of the Republic of Mali His Excellency Mamadou Tandja President of the Republic of Niger His Excellency Olusegun Obasanic President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria His Excellency Abdoulaye Wade President of the Republic of Senegal His Excellency General Gnassingbe Eyadem; President of the Togolese Republic Y-\er Excellency, isatou Njie-Saidy Vice-President of the Republic a The Gambia Representing the President of the Republic His Excellency Ernest Paramanga Yonli Prime Minister . \ Representing the President of Faso \ Final Communique ofthe 26m Session of the Authority Paae 2 His Excellency Lamine Sidime Prime Minister of the Republic of Guinea Representing the President of the Republic Mrs Fatima Veiga Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Representing the President of Cabo Verde Mr.
    [Show full text]
  • Political System of France the Fifth Republic • the Fifth Republic Was
    Political System of France The Fifth Republic • The fifth republic was established in 1958, and was largely the work of General de Gaulle - its first president, and Michel Debré his prime minister. It has been amended 17 times. Though the French constitution is parliamentary, it gives relatively extensive powers to the executive (President and Ministers) compared to other western democracies. • A popular referendum approved the constitution of the French Fifth Republic in 1958, greatly strengthening the authority of the presidency and the executive with respect to Parliament. • The constitution does not contain a bill of rights in itself, but its preamble mentions that France should follow the principles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, as well as those of the preamble to the constitution of the Fourth Republic. • This has been judged to imply that the principles laid forth in those texts have constitutional value, and that legislation infringing on those principles should be found unconstitutional if a recourse is filed before the Constitutional Council. The executive branch • The head of state and head of the executive is the President, elected by universal suffrage. • France has a semi-presidential system of government, with both a President and a Prime Minister. • The Prime Minister is responsible to the French Parliament. • A presidential candidate is required to obtain a nationwide majority of non- blank votes at either the first or second round of balloting, which implies that the President is somewhat supported by at least half of the voting population. • The President of France, as head of state and head of the executive, thus carries more power than leaders of most other European countries, where the two functions are separate (for example in the UK, the Monarch and the Prime minister, in Germany the President and the Chancellor.) • Since May 2017, France's president is Emmanuel Macron, who was elected to the post at age 39, the youngest French leader since Napoleon.
    [Show full text]
  • HE the Minister of State to the President of The
    Signature of the EUCLID Participation Agreements by the Government of Senegal (Above: Implementation meeting with ASG Imara Johnpullé held at the Permanent Mission of Senegal to the United Nations, August 2009) H.E. the Minister of State to the President of the Republic, Abdoulaye Faye 2009 Signed in: Dakar Participation in the Euclid Educational Framework – 1 ACCORD CADRE MIS A JOUR CONCERNANT LA PARTICIPATION DES PARTIES A EUCLIDE TELLE QUE CONSTITUÉE ET DÉFINIE ICI Les Parties Participantes, S’appuyant sur divers accords signés entre 2005 et 2008 ; Cherchant à promouvoir le Développement Durable de leurs nations, en particulier par la promotion de l’accès à l’éducation supérieure certains groupes spécifiques tel que les femmes, les officiels et fonctionnaires éligibles, ainsi que pour le grand public ; Conviennent comme suit : Article I Les Parties participent déjà et continuent à participer à EUCLIDE / EUCLID (Euclid University) (pouvant aussi être appelé Pôle Universitaire Euclide) qui a déjà et qui continue à avoir la personnalité juridique internationale, un statut sans but lucratif, et les capacités telles que nécessaire à l’exercice de ses fonctions et pour accomplir ses objectifs. EUCLID (Euclid University) est déjà et continue à être éligible pour la protection de sa propriété intellectuelle par l’Organisation Mondiale de la Propriété Intellectuelle en accord avec l’Article 6ter de la Convention de Paris. Afin d’assurer l’utilité internationale des formations offertes, EUCLIDE est autorisée à conférer des diplômes, titres et certificats accrédités par les ministères de l’Education des Parties Participantes. EUCLIDE, membre du Consortium Euclide, reçoit le mandat de faciliter l’accès universel à l’éducation supérieure et de promouvoir l’acquisition du savoir et des compétences sous la supervision des ministères de l’Education et des Affaires Etrangères des Parties Participantes.
    [Show full text]
  • National Security in Divided Government Executive Summary • Divided Government Is the Norm in Recent History, Not the Exception
    Maj. Gen. Arnold L. Punaro, USMC (Ret.) Former Staff Director, Senate Armed Services Committee National Security in Divided Government Executive Summary • Divided government is the norm in recent history, not the exception. In the last 54 years, 34 years had at least one of the three bodies (president, House, Senate) led by the opposite party. • Regardless of unified or divided government, the president still signed both a defense authorization bill and an appropriations bill that funded defense and intelligence activities into law each year. In all years, the defense committees operated in the main in their traditional bipartisan fashion. It should be recognized that a president can veto something out of a bill but hardly ever can veto something into a bill. • The automatic sequester cuts are still in effect for FY20 and FY21 on defense and domestic discretionary spending. This unfortunately provides a strong default position for those who do not want to reach another bipartisan spending compromise. • The deficits, interest on the debt, the apparent failure to spend domestic discretionary appropriated at the agreed levels, and the Freedom Caucus’s cure of their deficit spending amnesia will add to the degree of difficulty in reaching a bipartisan budget compromise. • With history as a guide, the Democratic majority in the House will likely set a lower defense topline than requested; curtail nuclear weapons programs; push social and environmental issues; fence troubled programs; provide generous pay, benefits, and pro-family programs; challenge any major organizational proposals; constrain ongoing operations while requiring real-time operational updates; and pursue arms control restrictions.
    [Show full text]
  • Administration of Donald J. Trump, 2019 Remarks Prior to a Meeting
    Administration of Donald J. Trump, 2019 Remarks Prior to a Meeting With President Emmanuel Macron of France and an Exchange With Reporters in Caen, France June 6, 2019 [President Macron began his remarks in French, and no translation was provided.] President Macron. I will say a few words in English, and I will repeat them exactly what I say. And I wanted first to thank you, President Donald Trump, for your presence here in this place. And thanks to your country, your nation, and your veterans. This morning we paid this tribute to their courage. And I think it was a great moment to celebrate and celebrate these people. President Trump. It was. President Macron. And I think your presence here to celebrate them, and their presence, is for me the best evidence of this unbreakable links between our two nations. From the very beginning of the American nation and all over the different centenaries, I think this message they conveyed to us, and our main tribute, is precisely to protect freedom and democracy everywhere. And this is why I'm always extremely happy to discuss with you in Washington, in Paris, or everywhere, in Caen today, is because we work very closely together. Our soldiers work very closely together—— President Trump. It's true, it's true. President Macron. ——in Sahel, in Iraq, in Syria. Each time freedom and democracy is at stake, we work closely together, and we will follow up. So thanks for this friendship. President Trump. Thank you very much. President Macron. Thanks for what your country did for my country.
    [Show full text]
  • The Issue of Cyprus in the EU Accession of Turkey
    Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union Volume 2011 2011 Article 4 April 2013 The sI sue of Cyprus in the EU Accession of Turkey Melike Baştürk Pitzer College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/urceu Part of the Eastern European Studies Commons, and the International Relations Commons Recommended Citation Baştürk, Melike (2011) "The sI sue of Cyprus in the EU Accession of Turkey," Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union: Vol. 2011, Article 4. DOI: 10.5642/urceu.201101.04 Available at: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/urceu/vol2011/iss1/4 This Chapter is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Claremont at Scholarship @ Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union by an authorized administrator of Scholarship @ Claremont. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Claremont–UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union 15 2 The Issue of Cyprus in the EU Accession of Turkey Melike Basturk A Divided Island: Cyprus It has always been hard to draw the map of Europe due to incomplete depictions of its geography. The borders of Europe include the states settled in Asia such as the Russian Federation, Azerbaijan and Armenia in the Council of Europe and even Israel in the song contest of Europe, Eurovision. However, the Europeanness of states like Turkey and Ukraine are always in question when it comes to the European Union (and the EC, its pre-1993 pre- decessor), even if both are in the Council of Europe simultaneously.
    [Show full text]
  • LETTER to G20, IMF, WORLD BANK, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT BANKS and NATIONAL GOVERNMENTS
    LETTER TO G20, IMF, WORLD BANK, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT BANKS and NATIONAL GOVERNMENTS We write to call for urgent action to address the global education emergency triggered by Covid-19. With over 1 billion children still out of school because of the lockdown, there is now a real and present danger that the public health crisis will create a COVID generation who lose out on schooling and whose opportunities are permanently damaged. While the more fortunate have had access to alternatives, the world’s poorest children have been locked out of learning, denied internet access, and with the loss of free school meals - once a lifeline for 300 million boys and girls – hunger has grown. An immediate concern, as we bring the lockdown to an end, is the fate of an estimated 30 million children who according to UNESCO may never return to school. For these, the world’s least advantaged children, education is often the only escape from poverty - a route that is in danger of closing. Many of these children are adolescent girls for whom being in school is the best defence against forced marriage and the best hope for a life of expanded opportunity. Many more are young children who risk being forced into exploitative and dangerous labour. And because education is linked to progress in virtually every area of human development – from child survival to maternal health, gender equality, job creation and inclusive economic growth – the education emergency will undermine the prospects for achieving all our 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and potentially set back progress on gender equity by years.
    [Show full text]
  • Legislative Chambers: Unicameral Or Bicameral?
    Legislative Chambers: Unicameral or Bicameral? Legislative Chambers: Unicameral or Bicameral? How many chambers a parliament should have is a controversial question in constitutional law. Having two legislative chambers grew out of the monarchy system in the UK and other European countries, where there was a need to represent both the aristocracy and the common man, and out of the federal system in the US. where individual states required representation. In recent years, unicameral systems, or those with one legislative chamber, were associated with authoritarian states. Although that perception does not currently hold true, there appears to be a general trend toward two chambers in emerging democracies, particularly in larger countries. Given historical, cultural and political factors, governments must decide whether one-chamber or two chambers better serve the needs of the country. Bicameral Chambers A bicameral legislature is composed of two-chambers, usually termed the lower house and upper house. The lower house is usually based proportionally on population with each member representing the same number of citizens in each district or region. The upper house varies more broadly in the way in which members are selected, including inheritance, appointment by various bodies and direct and indirect elections. Representation in the upper house can reflect political subdivisions, as is the case for the US Senate, German Bundesrat and Indian Rajya Sabha. Bicameral systems tend to occur in federal states, because of that system’s two-tiered power structure. Where subdivisions are drawn to coincide with other important societal units, the upper house can serve to represent ethnic, religious or tribal groupings, as in India or Ethiopia.
    [Show full text]
  • Federalism, Bicameralism, and Institutional Change: General Trends and One Case-Study*
    brazilianpoliticalsciencereview ARTICLE Federalism, Bicameralism, and Institutional Change: General Trends and One Case-study* Marta Arretche University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil The article distinguishes federal states from bicameralism and mechanisms of territorial representation in order to examine the association of each with institutional change in 32 countries by using constitutional amendments as a proxy. It reveals that bicameralism tends to be a better predictor of constitutional stability than federalism. All of the bicameral cases that are associated with high rates of constitutional amendment are also federal states, including Brazil, India, Austria, and Malaysia. In order to explore the mechanisms explaining this unexpected outcome, the article also examines the voting behavior of Brazilian senators constitutional amendments proposals (CAPs). It shows that the Brazilian Senate is a partisan Chamber. The article concludes that regional influence over institutional change can be substantially reduced, even under symmetrical bicameralism in which the Senate acts as a second veto arena, when party discipline prevails over the cohesion of regional representation. Keywords: Federalism; Bicameralism; Senate; Institutional change; Brazil. well-established proposition in the institutional literature argues that federal Astates tend to take a slow reform path. Among other typical federal institutions, the second legislative body (the Senate) common to federal systems (Lijphart 1999; Stepan * The Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa no Estado
    [Show full text]
  • France Study Trip “Presidential Election in France” a Project Within the Boschalumninetwork
    Politicis of France Study trip “Presidential Election in France” a project within the BoschAlumniNetwork France Area Total 643,801 km2 Metropolitan France1 551,695 km2 Population Total January 2017 estimate 66,991,000 (20th) Metropolitan France January 2017 estimate 64,859,000[5] (22nd) Metropolitan France Density 117,6/km2 Politics of France The Fifth Republic The Fifth Republic was established by Charles de Gaulle under the Constitution of the Fifth Republic on 4 October 1958. It emerged from the collapse of the Fourth Republic, replacing the former parliamen- tary republic with a semi-presidential, or dual-executive, system that split powers between a prime min- ister as head of government and a president as head of state. De Gaulle, who was the first president elected under the Fifth Republic in December 1958, believed in a strong head of state, which he de- scribed as embodying “l'esprit de la nation” (the spirit of the nation). The nation declares itself to be an "indivisible, secular, democratic, and social Republic". The constitu- tion provides for a separation of powers and proclaims France's "attachment to the Rights of Man and the principles of national sovereignty as defined by the Declaration of 1789." The Fifth Republic is France's third-longest political regime, after the hereditary and feudal monarchies of the Ancien Régime (15th century – 1792) and the parliamentary Third Republic (1879–1940). Executive branch Executive power is exercised by the President of the Republic and the Government. The Government consists of the Prime Minister and ministers. The Prime Minister is appointed by the President, and is responsible to Parliament.
    [Show full text]