Het geheim van de ministeriële verantwoordelijkheid : de verhouding tussen koning, kabinet, kamer en kiezer, 1848-1905

Abstract

The Secret of Ministerial Responsibility.

The Relationship between Crown, Cabinet, Chamber and Constituencies.

Today, we tend to conceive of ministerial responsibility as a rule.

Unquestioningly it is assumed that ministers are responsible solely to parliament for all their acts. Originally however, ministerial responsibility was a relational concept, which referred to the relationship between crown, cabinet, (Second) Chamber and constituencies; the four __c__s__. Ministerial responsibility was so to speak an instrument to keep those four constitutional powers in balance. In the period 1848 to 1905 eventually one interpretation came to the fore. In spite of this still dominant interpretation ministerial responsibility is essentially a relational concept providing for a constitutional equilibrium. In the build-up to the constitutional revision in 1848 the Second Chamber already tended to perceive ministerial responsibility as the trust it could put in a minister. The opinion in Dutch legal literature that ministerial responsibility and parliamentary confidence have to be separated from each other is not tenable in that respect. The relationship between cabinet and constituencies played a part in the April-movement in 1853, when Thorbecke__s cabinet was blamed for inadequately informing the people. In the period 1866-1868 liberals and conservatives fought for supremacy in politics by way of a verbal sword-play about the meaning of ministerial responsibility.