1st Edition
Public Accountability and Constitutional Law
This book analyses the public accountability of political actors in contemporary democratic states. Accountability as understood here is a necessary condition of democracy: delegation of power with transparency and supervision over those who are chosen to exercise the power of the state. The authors identify paths of executing accountability in the electoral process, as well as in traditional instruments of parliamentary scrutiny and other relationships between the legislative, executive and judicial branches. They track how well-known mechanisms of democracy fulfil the need to report on the exercising of an entrusted power. They also explore how new developments in the constitutional framework, that is, the post-evaluation of legislation, and beyond it in mass social movements, Big Tech companies and social media, are changing the classic and established concepts of accountable power. The book will be a valuable resource for academics, researchers and policymakers working it the areas of Constitutional Law and Politics and Accountability Studies.
1. Accountability in constitutional law – assumptions and meaning; 2. On the illusory nature of political representation and the illusion of its accountability; 3. Regulatory Impact Assessment ex post as an accountability instrument. Why does it fail to work?; 4. Parliamentary scrutiny: Toolbox of institutional accountability of government; 5. Judicial accountability - where to look for it and why is it not there?; 6. Non-state actors in the constitutional framework: political impact without public accountability; Conclusions
Biography
Anna Młynarska-Sobaczewska is a lawyer and a professor in the Department of Constitutional Law and European Research at the Institute of Law Studies at the Polish Academy of Sciences. She has been a visiting scholar in law schools in the USA, Italy, Germany, Vietnam (Hanoi) and Spain.
Jacek Zaleśny is a lawyer, political scientist and associate professor in the Department of Political Systems of the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, University of Warsaw, Poland. His research interests include the political systems of contemporary states, the law-making process and institutions of legal protection.
