Ballet of parliamentarians, media pressure and serial speculation: the Constitutional Council holds the fate of the pension reform in its hands, and finds itself in the middle of an unprecedented whirlwind, before its long-awaited decision on Friday.
Censor, not censor? The Council will announce on April 14 “at the end of the day” if it validates the government’s decried project, or if it censors it in part or in full. He will also judge whether the left’s request for a shared initiative referendum (RIP) is admissible or not.
“Such a spotlight on the Council is quite unprecedented,” notes public law professor Mathilde Philip-Gay. “Even on the biggest decisions, there weren’t as many debates or hopes.”
Nestled in the Palais Royal, at the foot of the Comédie Française, the institution cultivates discretion. Its nine members are bound by a duty of reserve.
Can the reputedly distant relationship between the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron and the President of the Council Laurent Fabius weigh? What about the political color of the former head of the socialist government or his colleagues? From the past of Alain Juppé, the RPR Prime Minister of 1995 who had to bury his pension reform under pressure from the street?
To hear a former President of the Council, however, this is not at all how the questions arise: the institution does not “render any service” and “does not judge the advisability of a law”. It simply checks “if the Constitution has been respected. It’s a collective deliberation, it’s been working for 65 years”, insists Jean-Louis Debré, former Sage therefore, and son of Michel Debré, editor of the Constitution of the V Republic.
In their appeals, parliamentarians from the left or far right have therefore attacked the “legislative vehicle” chosen by the government: an amending budget for Social Security, which imposes time constraints on Parliament and which they consider ” unsuited” to a reform of the magnitude of that of pensions.
They pointed to the many tools mobilized by the government to “muzzle” Parliament: vote blocked in the Senate, 49.3 in the Assembly to pass the text without a vote…
On Tuesday and Thursday, delegations of deputies and then left-wing senators followed one another before the Elders to demand “total censorship”.
“The nine members of the Constitutional Council were present, which is to say the importance attached to the seriousness of our approach”, wanted to believe the communist Sébastien Jumel.
A few days earlier, ecologist Sandrine Rousseau was less optimistic. “I don’t expect anything from this Constitutional Council. I don’t think Alain Juppé is on a position that joins the demonstrators and the Nupes”, she swept away, mocking the “average age”, almost 72 years old , of the “Avengers” of the Council.
Among the Elders, three rapporteurs have been appointed to work more specifically on these appeals. Around them, the legal service of the Council had already worked upstream.
On 14 April, the rapporteurs will present their colleagues with a proposal for decisions. Their report will be put to a vote, with a casting vote for President Fabius in the event of a tie.
In the meantime, the most eminent constitutionalists are engaged in a contest of predictions, sometimes not without political ulterior motives.
For the most part, the most likely option remains partial censorship of the text: the main lines would be validated but cavalier articles retorted because they have no direct link with this budgetary text, for example the index on the employment of seniors in companies.
For some, the coup de theater of total censorship would however allow the Council to take its “flight”: to evolve its doctrine while “it is reluctant to intervene on the most political questions”, according to Mathilde Philip-Gay.
The Elders are appointed for nine non-renewable years (by thirds every three years), by the Presidents of the Assembly and the Senate and by the Head of State, which fuels criticism.
The presence of former politicians strangles many lawyers. The relative means of the institution (13.3 million euros for 2023, 70 employees) and its altogether modest influence are also deplored. Very far from its distant cousin: the American Supreme Court, with a far superior strike force.
04/09/2023 12:50:49 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
