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Semi-parliamentary system can refer to one of the following:
The former was first proposed byMaurice Duverger, who used it to refer toIsrael from 1996 to 2001.[1] The second was identified by German academic Steffen Ganghof.[2]
Likesemi-presidential systems, semi-parliamentary systems are a strongly rationalized form ofparliamentary systems. AfterIsrael decided to abolish the direct election of prime ministers in 2001, there are no national prime-ministerial systems in the world; however, a prime-ministerial system is used in Israeli and Italian cities and towns to elect mayors and councils.
In a prime-ministerial system, as in standardparliamentary systems, the prime minister can still be dismissed by a vote of no confidence, this however effectively causes asnap election for both the prime ministerand the legislature (a rule commonly expressed by the brocardaut simul stabunt aut simul cadent, Latin for "they will either stand together, or fall together").
Parliamentary systems originated in constitutional monarchies, in which the government was dually accountable to the parliament and the king: the plurality of opinions of elected assemblies was then balanced by the direction of the monarch. Over time, the power of hereditary monarchs came to be understood as untenable in a democracy, leading many constitutional monarchies to evolve into parliamentary republics, while in the remaining ones the monarch became an increasingly ceremonial figure: regardless of the presence of an elected or unelected head of state, the parliament was thus established as the dominating institution.
In their most basic form, parliamentary systems tend to be quite anarchic, as in the well-known cases of the Frenchthird andfourth republics.[dubious –discuss] The attitude of parliaments towards governments is essentially oppositive, as elected assemblies are often incapable of taking energetic decisions whose advantages will only be perceived in the future, but whose disadvantages are immediately experienced by the electors. This calls for a strong rationalization of parliamentary systems, such as the one that developed in theUnited Kingdom, where the hereditary monarch has effectively been replaced by an "elected monarch", namely theprime minister.
Being largely based on conventions, the Westminster system cannot be easily replicated in other countries.[citation needed] In his 1956 proposal, Maurice Duverger suggested that France could attain government stability by means of adirect election of the Prime Minister, that was to take place at the same time as the legislative election, by means of a separate ballot paper. The Prime Minister and his supporting parliamentary majority would need to beinseparable for the whole duration of the legislature: in case of a vote of no-confidence, forced resignation, or dissolution of the parliament, a snap election would be held for both the National Assembly and the Prime Minister.
Direct election of the prime minister, alone, would not be sufficient to ensure government stability: a second round of election should be employed so that electors can be allowed to express their ideological preferences in the first round, and designate a majority in the second. The electoral law would then provide the Prime Minister with a parliamentary majority.[dubious –discuss]
UnderCharles de Gaulle, France adopted a different rationalization of parliamentary government calledsemi-presidential system. Duverger's proposal thus remained unnamed until the French political scientist termed it "semi-parliamentary" in 1996.
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In 1993, Italy adopted a new electoral law introducing the direct election of mayors, in conjunction with municipal councils. On a single ballot paper, the elector can express two votes, one for the mayor, and the other one for the council. The mayor is elected with a two-round system: at the first round, the candidate receiving the absolute majority of valid votes is elected; if no candidate receives an absolute majority, a second round between the two top-ranking candidates is held. Councils are elected by semi-proportional representation: the party or coalition linked to the mayor elect receives at least 60% of the seats, while the other parties are allocated seats in a proportional fashion. This ensures the existence of a working majority for the mayor: the council can remove the mayor with an absolute majority vote, but in this case it also causes its own dissolution and a snap election.
In 1999, a constitutional reform introduced the direct election of regional presidents, whose term is linked to that of regional councils much in the same way as it is the case for mayors and municipal councils.
During thethirteenth Knesset (1992–1996), Israel decided to hold a separate ballot forPrime Minister modeled afterAmerican presidential elections. This system was instituted in part because the Israeli electoral system makes it all but impossible for one party to win a majority. However, nomajority bonus was assigned to the Prime Minister's supporting party: therefore, he was forced to obtain the support of other parties in theKnesset. As this effectively added rigidity to the system without improving its stability, direct election of the Prime Minister was abolished after the2001 election.
This system has been described by some as ananti-model of prime-ministerial systems.[3] In Israel, thebasic laws allowed, under certain conditions,special elections for the prime minister only, with no dissolution of the Knesset: in practice, there were as many as eight special elections in just a few years, which constitutes a considerable departure from thesimul simul principle. For this reason, the Israeli version of the prime-ministerial system was never considered to work functionally.[4]
In the second form of the semi-parliamentary system, identified by German academic Steffen Ganghof, the issues of a lack ofseparation of powers as present in a traditional parliamentary system and that of executive personalisation as found in a presidential system are confronted by dividing the legislature into 2 elected assemblies. One of these assemblies may be referred to as a "confidence chamber" that has the power to select and dismiss a prime minister and their ministers, while the other may be called a "legislative chamber". This chamber acts in a manner similar to that of the independent legislative branches that operate in presidential systems, able to introduce, amend and reject legislation, but unable to vote "no confidence" in the government.[2]
In the book "Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism. Democratic Design and the Separation of Powers", Ganghof gives this abstract definition of semi-parliamentarism:
Under semi-parliamentary government, no part of the executive is elected directly. The prime minister and cabinet are selected by an assembly with two parts, only one of which can dismiss the cabinet in a no-confidence vote even though the other has equal or greater democratic legitimacy and robust veto power over ordinary legislation.
— Steffen Ganghof, (2021)Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism. Democratic Design and the Separation of Powers, Page 67,Oxford University Press
This form of Semi-Parliamentary government has also been further explored by Tarunabh Khaitan, who coined the phrase "Moderated Parliamentarism" to describe a form of Semi-parliamentarism with several distinctive features: mixed bicameralism, moderated (but distinct) electoral systems for each chamber, weighted multipartisanship, asynchronous electoral schedules, and deadlock resolution through conference committees.[5]