PAOLO  COLOMBO

«Riforma legale» e «potere costituente» nelle costituzioni rivoluzionarie francesi  

N. 3/1985

Summary – The question of the legal reform of the constitution seems to be a "constant" in the development of the parliamentary regimes. The a. examines such problem in relation to the constitutional events of the French revolutionary period, paying particular attention to the distinction between "pouvoir constitué" and "pouvoir constituant": a distinction that appears as a fundamental element of the doctrinal elaboration of those years. The a. points out two fundamental aspects of such elaboration: in the first place, the ideological value attributed to the principle of the legal reform by the "revolutionary" class; in the second place, the profound difference between the theoretical affirmations on the part of the French deputies and the procedures of revision anticipated by the four revolutionary constitutions. The imposition of heavy bonds on the constituent power seems, in fact, to show the wish to make any change highly improbable; in particular, the distinction between "changement total " and " réformation partielle " seems to aim at the attribution of constituent functions to the constituted bodies. The a.s attention, then, turns to the continual clash between the upholders of two different conceptions: the one of an autonomous and efficient constituent power and the other of a constituent body heavily bound (or even prevented from operating). In that sense, the a. analyses the institutional projects by Condorcet and Sieyes and, through the parliamentary debates, the process through which the various constitutions have been drawn up. Such analysis reveals a persistent research by the French constituents of a strong constitutional stability: from this point of view, the problem of the legal reform of the constitution appears strictly linked with the question of the stability of the political class in power and to that of the socio-economic stability.