Separation of Powers Dismantled? Over-Rationalisation of Parliamentarism During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Czech Republic, Poland and France

Abstrakt

This article is intended as a contribution to the research into the increasing role of the executive in modern government systems, including the use of emergency measures. In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, we deal with an ongoing crisis of global significance. It is the prevalence of the coronavirus threat that provides a unique opportunity to make comparisons and formulate conclusions as to the newly diagnosed phenomenon of over-rationalized parliamentarism interpreted as an element of the ongoing strengthening of the executive power, and, at the same time, a potential serious threat to the already weakened separation of powers. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the relative balance between powers – such balance being a structural element of the principle of separation of powers in a democratic state ruled by law – becomes (to a greater or lesser extent) disintegrated. The paper claims that irrespective of the formal response to COVID-19 (such as introducing a state of emergency in the Czech Republic, creating a new state of emergency in France and applying emergency measures without declaring a state of emergency in Poland), it appears that the extraordinary measures introduced are rather similar.