Obstacles to Effective Governance or Safeguards against Democratic Backsliding

• In Event: The Problematique of Democratic Backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

Existence of bicameral parliaments in unitary countries opens up questions about the relevance and sense of second chambers. While the demand for territorial representation is often quoted as the key reason for establishing second chambers, there are other principles of second chamber representation and / or roles they are playing. One of them is the expansion of the checks-and-balances system beyond the traditional executive – legislative – judicial triangle. Existence of two chambers also brings the check-and-balance principle inside the legislative branch itself. Second chambers are thus understood as certain guarantors of constitutionality and democracy. The article focuses on the role the second chambers in the region of post-Communist Central Europe have played in the process of preventing democratic backsliding, a recent phenomenon visible (not only) in the region. The problem will be analyzed in the context of the compositional (in)congruence, the constitutional position and powers (as well as limits) of both second chambers. It will also analyze whether the current institutional frameworks in respective Central European countries allow for second chambers to act as guarantors of constitutionality and democracy.

Author

• Petr Just, Metropolitan University Prague