SPECULATIONS ON THE CONSTITUTIONAL WORDING - “SHALL AUTHORIZE THE SAME GOVERNMENT TO PERFORM ITS DUTIES”
Abstract
A new wording of the Constitution has revised a role for the Georgian Government in state design and declared it the supreme body of the executive branch. Its high constitutional status is secured by appropriate powers.
The questions regarding the quality of the legitimacy of the Government in a situation where it has a status of a provisional government drew attention during the course of constitutional reform back in 2009-2010. The questions became even more current after the adoption of a Constitutional Law of Georgia on(and?) the Amendments and Changes to the Constitution of Georgia by the Parliament on 25 March, 2013. The new law revised six paragraphs of three different articles, however, almost all of them are linked directly or indirectly to the issue of a provisional government and focus on the element that the ‘old’ government should perform its duties and responsibilities until a new government is appointed. This law is temporary and is in force until the moment when a newly elected President in 2013 takes the oath and, as some scholars observe, it aimed at avoiding a political crisis. However, the fact that the current majority of the Parliament has not even tried to improve the institution of the acting government shows that the Parliament’s majority, like most of the constitutionalists, do not see the risks, political and legal errors and a possible stalemate. Furthermore, they accept that level of legitimacy of the provisional government which has been determined by the current norms regulating the institution.
The Government is the most important constitutional institution, with exclusive functions to coerce and apply physical resources and control their application. Consequently, there are doubts about whether a provisional government, which many observers note does not possess legitimacy or enjoy low level of it, may act at its will while coercing or applying resources. The Georgian legislation should remove all doubts about these issues. The present paper will examine the legal foundations for terminating the current (regular) government’s authorities, a procedure for the formation of an acting government and its conditions, and also the issues concerning the possibility for the forming of an acting government, its reasonableness and level of legitimacy.
