Reinventing government and the separation of powers

Stumpf, István (2016) Reinventing government and the separation of powers. Hungarian Journal of Legal Studies, 57 (1). pp. 42-58. ISSN 2498-5473

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Abstract

Challenges caused by the global economic crisis in connection with the structural, political changes transformed the construction, the nature, and the operation of the executive branch. During the last decades in the separation of powers’ system the state had been rediscovered and governmental power had been appreciated. In a world covered with the internet, financial, economic and political crisis situations appeared; governments and governmental centres had to give sufficient answers to global challenges. The world under the pressure of the media changed the daily routine of the governmental work: beside the good decision-making, carrying the governments’ point across parliaments and public opinion too became increasingly significant. Strengthening the symbiosis between the legislative and executive branch in parliamentary governmental systems can be observed. Members of the governing party attending the rigorous party discipline are decreasingly able to function as democratic control. These members rather become patronisers (‘voting machines’) of the governmental intention without critical voices. The personality of the politicians coming to the front and the marketability of the politics in the media also strengthened the process which resulted in the intensity of the Prime Minister’s role within the executive branch. Increasing the role of the Prime Minister and governmental central bodies lead to the weakening of the government’s corporative character, and the government’s gaining ground opposed to the Parliament. According to international examples in significant western European parliamentary democracies (for example: United Kingdom: Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, Italy: Silvio Berlusconi, Sweden: Göran Persson) the role of the Prime Minister (as the head of the government) also appreciably strengthened. Beside this attitude, the outsourcing of each governmental function (good governance), the sufficiency of state’s strengthening (good government), and making governmental public services available electronically (e-government) are also under hard discussion. The aim of this paper is to review — based on new constitutional and other changes of public law — the centralization of the head of the Hungarian government; the strengthening of the ‘chancellor-principle’ by the Hungarian Fundamental Law; and the process that lead to the Prime Minister’s Office becoming ‘top chancery’. The paper takes into consideration the transformation of the separation of powers’ system and the strengthening of the Prime Minister’s role within the executive branch and its affect on the Hungarian administrative system.

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