Original scientific paper

The Semipresidential System and Parliamentarism

Smiljko Sokol ; Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

Abstract

The author believes that the Croatian constitutional model (as a basic feature and a group of institute which define the relationship between the legislative and the executive power through the constitutional law) happens to be only an institutional variant of parliamentarism which - in all contemporary democracies - in practice finds expression in the form of parliamentarism with its balance tilted in favour of the executive power. According to the author, the reality of the Croatian semipresidential system is in no way essentially different from the reality of the relationship between the legislative and executive power not only in the French Fifth Republic but also in other developed European democracies. The president of the Republic of Croatia has in fact legal authority or political power in no way larger of those of the President of the French Republic, the German Chancellor, or in particular the British Prime Minister. The author tries to explain and to prove these two theses through a comparative examination of the features of the constitutions in terms of constitutional law, the history of their development, and the contemporary reality of both the full parliamentary and the semipresidential system.

Keywords

Hrčak ID:

112341

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/112341

Publication date:

1.9.1992.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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