Since her appointment as Prime Minister in May 2022, this article has been used 11 times by Elisabeth Borne.
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The government’s desire to push through the pension reform at all costs has angered protesters. It is now up to the Council of Europe to pin the French executive. The watch of human rights on the continent threw, Wednesday June 14, a stone in the pond of the French political life by considering that article 49.3 of the Constitution “raises questions”.
>> Budget 2023: what you need to know about 49.3, this article of the Constitution which allows the government to force its way through the Assembly
The article in question, which allows the adoption of a text of law without a vote of the Parliament, appears since 1958 in the Constitution, and was used 100 times by the governments which succeeded one another since this date. It has been drawn no less than 11 times by the current Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, since her appointment in May 2022. Since 2008, this article can only be activated for finance bills (PLF) or the financing of Social Security (PLFSS), and for only one other text per parliamentary session.
“Significant interference by the executive”
In an opinion published on Wednesday, the Venice Commission, a Council of Europe advisory group providing States with legal opinions on draft laws or texts already in force, considers that this system “raises questions with regard to the principles of pluralism, the separation of powers and the sovereignty of the legislator”. This article constitutes a “significant interference by the executive in the powers and role of the legislature”observes the committee.
It thus allows, according to her, “in some cases”the adoption of a law “without a real and thorough discussion of its contents”. The authors of the opinion also criticize the control of the use of 49.3 by the Constitutional Council. This control, restricted to “strict compliance with the activation procedure”, “limits the guarantee of legislative supremacy”. The Venice Commission announces that it will carry out a “comparative analysis” mechanisms that allow governments “to intervene in the legislative powers of Parliaments” other European countries, before publishing its final conclusions.