Responsibility of Members of the Federal Government in Belgium

The article is devoted to the responsibility of members of the Federal Government in Belgium. The main part of the study concerns the mechanisms of political responsibility. They include individual responsibility of ministers and collective responsibility of the cabinet. According to the original version of the Belgian Constitution of 1831 ministers were responsible to the king. Currently, the House of Representatives is authorized to enforce the individual responsibility of the minister by passing a vote of no confidence. In such situation the king is obliged to dismiss the minister. The entire cabinet may be the addressee of the motion of no confidence, too (collective responsibility). Since 1993 there has been the possibility of overthrowing the government through a constructive vote of no confidence. The article also discusses the problem of legal responsibility of ministers.

The procedure for amending the Constitution of Belgium  in connection with the transitional provisions of the 2012

Changing of the constitution is usually followed by using a well-defined procedure. Few European countries allow the possibility of adopting a limited exception to the Constitution. Such a law introduced in 2012, Belgium, despite the lack of appropriate legislation and practice in this field. Belgian exception to the constitution temporarily modifies the procedure for changing the constitution. This involves the withdrawal of typical Nordic countries requiring approval of amendment of the constitution by two term of the parliament. Other elements of the procedure for amending the Belgian Constitution, such as equal rights of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and increased quorum and majority required for approval of amendment, remained unchanged. Validity exception of the Belgian Constitution ends with the term of the parliament elect-ed in 2010.

Within the last few years, radical right-wing parties gained relevance in some European countries, shifting the position of marginal political rebel to being a serious competitor of the mainstream parties. To explain the emergence and volatile fortune of this party family, we resort to supply-side explanation, and we analyse the case of the Flemish Vlaams Belang (VB) which suffered severe electoral defeat in 2014, to be reborn five years later. The analysis is based on the existing data concerning party platform, shift in electoral support, campaign spending, and the findings from individual in-depth interviews conducted with people from party headquarter and party leadership. On this base we conclude that external-supply factors created an opportunity the VB could take advantage of, thanks to deliberate changes introduced in internal-supply variables after 2014 defeat.

This paper focuses on the unique characteristics of revisions of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Belgium using the so-called “implicit” method. To the extent necessary, the paper outlines the ordinary, extremely difficult procedure defined in Art. 195 of the Constitution for amending the Constitution and then defines the implicit method as an informal method of implied revision of the Constitution designed to “circumvent” the procedure indicated in that Article. The author is critical of the method presented herein. In his opinion, a constitutional revision carried out in this manner contributes to a devaluation of the importance of the Constitution while demonstrating the need for a reform of its Art. 195.

Belgium as a Laboratory of Bipolar Federalism

Having moved away from unitarism, Belgium is described as a federal state of communities and regions. A large number of interpreters of the Belgian Constitution believe that federalism is an essential element of its constitutional identity. However, a more detailed analysis is needed to interpret the political system of this state. The breakdown of the unity of the political community at the national level as well as the doubt about the existence of a political nation are of crucial importance. A striking identity and growing separateness of the two linguistic groups, Flemish and Walloon, are decisive factors behind the originality of the political system of modern Belgium. In the article, I point out that the distinctive feature of the Belgian federalism involves the bipolarity and domination of the constitutional mechanism based on co-determination and co-operation of the two linguistic groups as the actual subjects of the power in the state. The predominance of this mechanism has significant systemic effects, including the renunciation of reforms to rationalize parliamentarism. The article also shows the importance of the Constitutional Court, hitherto underestimated, in maintaining the Belgian unity.