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Unit 8: Constitutional Structure: Legislature

members of the upper house are popularly elected. This must be reconciled in some way, however, Notes
with the constitutional requirement that the two members of the chamber from each of Russian 89
territorial subjects represent the executive and legislative branches.
Executive-Legislative Relations

Both the constitution and the realities of Russia’s political system tilt the balance of power between
president and parliament strongly in the president’s favor. Yet as great as the president’s powers vis-
a-vis parliament are, they should not be exaggerated. Certainly the constitution makes it far harder
for the parliament to remove the president than for the president to dissolve parliament. As in the
United States, the legislature’s sole device for forcing out the president is impeachment.
Parliament’s power to check the president has little to do with the threat of impeachment, however.
Rather it stems from the need for the parliament’s approval of all legislation, and the requirement of
parliamentary confidence in the government. Since a presidential decree may not contradict federal
law or the constitution, a law has greater legitimacy in the eyes of the public and bureaucracy than a
decree. A president would rather win passage of his policies in parliament, therefore, than to enact
them by decree.
Relations between president and parliament during the Yeltsin period were often stormy. The first
two Dumas, elected in 1993 and in 1995, were dominated by the communist and other leftist factions
hostile to President Yeltsin and the policies of his government. This was particularly true in areas of
economic policy and privatization. On other issues, however, such as matters concerning federal
relations, the Duma and president often reached agreement—sometimes against the resistance of the
Federation Council, whose members fought to protect regional prerogatives.
The election of 1999 produced a Duma with a pro-government majority. President Putin and his
government worked to build a reliable majority base in the Duma for their legislative initiatives
comprising a coalition of four centrist political factions. The members of these factions depend heavily
on the Kremlin for political support, personal benefits, and the promise of help in the next election
campaign. Generally, the progovernment factions in the Duma need the Kremlin much more than
the Kremlin needs them.
The French Parliament

A study of the political system of the Fifth Republic leaves an impression that the Parliament is the
‘step-child’ under the new constitutional dispensation.” It is, indeed, a major departure from the old
tradition that the legislature is no longer the sole embodiment of the sovereignty of the people. The
Constitution establishes a fundamentally different system under which the lower house (National
Assembly) and the upper one (Senate) “are more nearly co-equal than they were in the Fourth Republic,
although both are diminished in stature compared with the power of the executive.” Whereas the
organisation of the legislature under the old system was dubbed as “incomplete bicameralism” or
modified unicameralism ; the present system “may be considered as a strongly modified
parliamentarism.”
Composition of National Assembly and Senate: Like British Parliament and American Congress,
the French Parliament is bi-cameral having Senate and National Assembly as the upper and lower
chambers respectively. However, the arrangement of two chambers is well in conformity with the
old tradition of the Third and Fourth Republics with three exceptions. First, the upper chamber has a
changed name ; it is no longer the Council of the Republic as under the Fourth Republic, it is Senate
as it was under the Third Republic. Second, the powers of the Senate have been increased in order to
make it a more or less equally powerful chamber as compared with the powers of the National
Assembly except in matters of passing money bills or censuring the government. Last the ‘principle
of incompatibility’ has been introduced to debar a minister from retaining his seat in the Parliament
for no other reason than to depoliticise the government or reduce the temperature of politics.
Like the House of Commons of Britain and the House of Representatives of the United States, the
lower house of the French Parliament is organised on the basis of direct election. Its strength is 577.
The minimum age for voting is 21 years, while for being elected to the Assembly, it is 23 years.

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