No. 27

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On Definition of Party According to the Constitution and Institutional Crisis of Parties

19 June 2013

Studies

RiTo No. 27, 2013

In the author’s opinion, the current events in Estonia do not express the model of classical parliamentarism or the constitutional principle of the separation of powers, but function according to a corporative partocratic model of power.

The authority is consolidated not in the hands of the parliament as a representative organ based on election of persons, but in the so-called lobbies of the political parties or their coalitions exercising supreme power. The model of election of persons has been replaced by a model of party elections or political elections. With the help of legislative acts, the political parties have deviated from the status that was provided to them by the Constitution, and have extended their legal capacity. From the author’s viewpoint, the errors in constitutional choices made decades ago now require a restart on the levels of legislation and political science, as well as on the level of shaping the public opinion. In order to achieve that, it is necessary to recognize the political parties not as an association of like-minded people, but as a group expressing and propagating a common world view (ideology), and to separate them from the rest of the non-profit sector, making them an intermediate between the people and the institutional government authorities created by the people.

Full article in Estonian

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