From the convulsive investiture to the destructive spirit’s motion

Authors

  • Fernando Simón Yarza Universidad de Navarra

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18042/cepc/redc.116.04

Keywords:

Vote of no confidence, constructive vote of no confidence, Parliament, parliamentarism, parliamentary government, separation of powers, democracy, legal fraud, political responsibility, political stability.

Abstract

At the end of the Weimar Republic and during the constitutional debates that led to the approval of the Bonn Basic Law, the constructive vote of no confidence was conceived as a means of assuring the political stability in a context of parliamentary fragmentation. Nevertheless, in a situation of exacerbated partisan interests, the constructive motion even poses certain collateral risks that were duly identified by some German public-law theorists in the mid-20th Century. In this article, the author reflects upon the meaning and purpose of the constructive vote of no confidence and confronts it with the motion approved in Spain in June 2018. As the author explains, the use of the legal-political institucions in accordance with the spirit of the Constitutional order to a great extent depends on the responsibility of lofty statesmen, and despite being a genuine legal issue, it cannot be controlled by the judges.

Published

2019-07-31

Issue

Section

STUDIES