Institutions and democracy: decrees of necessity and urgency in the argentine constitutional experience

Impact on the system of checks and balances in argentina, proposals for overcoming it

Abstract

Governance in Democracy, if fidelity to its basic postulates is to be sought, implies un restricted respect for the principle of separation of powers and the mechanism of checks and ba lances established by the constitutional text as a limit to the exercise of Power, and especially of  the Executive Power in a presidential system such as Argentina's. In Argentina, the application of  the institution of emergency decrees not only failed to embody the exceptional nature assigned to  them by Article 99, section 3 of the Constitution, but also gave rise to an abusive exercise of administrative power, which improperly assumed legislative powers that belong to the Legislative  Branch. The latter, in turn, did not adequately exercise the controls provided for in the constitutional text or in the laws enacted accordingly, thereby collaborating with the discretion employed by  the former.