ZAGREB, Oct 27 (Hina) - After the election, President Stjepan Mesic does not need to entrust the leader of the party which won the highest number of seats in parliament with the task to form a new government, but the person who can
secure the majority required to make up the cabinet, constitutional and legal experts Branko Smerdel and Jadranko Crnic told Hina on Monday.
ZAGREB, Oct 27 (Hina) - After the election, President Stjepan Mesic
does not need to entrust the leader of the party which won the
highest number of seats in parliament with the task to form a new
government, but the person who can secure the majority required to
make up the cabinet, constitutional and legal experts Branko
Smerdel and Jadranko Crnic told Hina on Monday. #L#
Those who read in the Constitution that after the ballot, the
president of the republic must entrust the president of the winning
party with the task to form the new government are wrong, said
Smerdel, head of the Zagreb Law School's constitutional law
department, and Crnic, former president of the Constitutional
Court.
Their interpretation is contrary to that of professor Mirjana
Kasapovic, presented in a national weekly recently, and some other
public figures and columnists.
"Professor Kasapovic is right when she claims that in some
countries, it is democratic tradition to entrust the forming of the
government to the party which won the election, but those are
countries with pure parliamentary systems," said Smerdel.
"Croatia does not have a pure parliamentary system, but it has been
corrected with elements of the rational parliamentary system," he
added.
"This is evident in the provision on the dissolving of parliament
under which parliament is not dissolved when a vote of no-
confidence is given to the government, or when the government
resigns, which would be the case in a pure parliamentary system, but
envisages the possibility of entrusting a premier-designate with
forming a new government with the same make-up of the parliament if
the required majority has been ensured," Smerdel said.
In keeping with provisions on models of dissolving parliament,
which are not like those in pure parliamentary systems, and with the
provision on the forming of the government after elections, the
president of the republic entrusts the task to the person who, in
line with the division of seats in parliament and prior
consultations, enjoys the confidence of the majority of MPs, said
Smerdel.
He illustrated his position with an example: if the Croatian
Democratic Union (HDZ) won the election and its president Ivo
Sanader enjoyed the confidence of the majority of deputies,
President Mesic would have to entrust him with the formation of the
new cabinet, in line with the division of seats in parliament and
prior consultations.
However, if the HDZ won the highest number of seats in parliament
but was not supported by the majority of MPs to form the government,
the task should be entrusted to the person enjoying the confidence
of most MPs, Smerdel concluded.
According to Crnic, the Constitution would be irrelevant if the
issue was a matter of adding up the number of seats which were won
and of the automatic entrusting of the formation of the new
government.
"The responsibility of the president of the republic for the
formation of the new government, which does not boil down to math,
may be also read in the constitutional provision under which he
takes care of the harmonised performance and stability of state
authorities," Crnic said.
Both experts are agreed that despite possible criticism with regard
to the clarity and consistency of certain constitutional
provisions, those on the powers of the head of state are the most
minutely worked out as they can be prescribed only by the
Constitution.
(hina) ha sb