Representation Act
The Representation Act (or Representation Act ) of 1878 continued a provision of the German constitution . According to Art. 17 of the constitution, the Reich Chancellor assumed responsibility for the emperor's orders and orders by signing . The new law enabled the Chancellor to apply for deputies to be appointed who could countersign in place of the Chancellor. A deputy could be appointed for individual “branches of office” as well as for all “business and duties of the Reich Chancellor”. The latter enabled the introduction of a vice chancellor , although this term itself does not appear in the law.
law
Article 17 of the 1871 Constitution said:
- The emperor is entitled to the execution and promulgation of the imperial laws and the supervision of the execution thereof. The orders and orders of the emperor are issued in the name of the empire and require the countersignature of the imperial chancellor to be valid, who thereby assumes responsibility.
The "law on the deputy of the Reich Chancellor" of March 17, 1878 did not change the constitution literally, but determined:
- §. 1. The countersignature of the Imperial Chancellor required for the validity of the orders and dispositions of the Emperor, as well as the other duties assigned to the same by the constitution and the laws of the Empire, can be carried out by deputies in accordance with the following provisions, which the Emperor at the request of the Imperial Chancellor in cases the disability of the same.
- §. 2. A general deputy can be appointed for the entire scope of the business and duties of the Reich Chancellor. Also, for those individual branches of office which are in the realm's own and immediate administration, the boards of the highest Reich authorities subordinate to the Reich Chancellor can be entrusted with the representation of the same in the whole scope or in individual parts of their business area.
- §. 3. The Reich Chancellor reserves the right to carry out every official act himself during the duration of a deputy.
meaning
According to Huber , Chancellor Bismarck resisted the pressure of the Liberals to appoint responsible Reich ministers as colleagues. However, he expanded the "system of responsibility" considerably. The Empire State Secretaries could for their respective Reichsamt countersign instead of the Chancellor, that they took over the independent parliamentary responsibility. The Reichstag was able to exercise more effective control over the departments. This control developed primarily through the budget law of the Reichstag. The law was changed in the October reforms of 1918.
See also
Web links
supporting documents
- ↑ See Wikisource: Constitution of the German Empire (1871) , accessed on January 8, 2014.
- ↑ See Documentarchiv.de: Representation Act , accessed on January 8, 2014.
- ^ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German constitutional history since 1789 . Volume IV: Structure and Crises of the Empire, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart et al. 1969, p. 155/156.