Dissolution of parliament in parliamentary systems. Innovations in the legislation and political practice

The institution of parliamentary dissolution is necessary to resolve the conflict between the parliament and the government. The dissolution of parliament results from a vote no confidence to the government, as well as it happens in cases prescribed by law. One of the most common options is the dissolution at the initiative of the prime minister to create advantages for the ruling party in early elections. The article highlights new trends in the development of the institution of parliament dissolution. One of them is the rarer use of dissolution to overcome the crisis in the relationship between the branches of government. The author argues that parliament dissolution is gradually turning from an institution of subjective discretion of the prime minister and government into a legal way to resolve deadlocks in the political process. This goal is served by the constitutional and legal restrictions on dissolution, which are widespread in the legislation of many parliamentary countries. The author notes that today there is a constitutionalization of the dissolution institute with the simultaneous depoliticization of that institution, namely, the narrowing of the freedom of choice of actors, primarily the prime minister. At the same time, in contemporary parliamentary systems, there is a different amount of dissolution legislative restrictions. The author analyzes such a kind of restriction on dissolution as the introduction of a fixed date for elections to the parliaments of Great Britain and Canada. The article claims that in practice this restriction does not lead to the weakening of the prime minister’s power of dissolution. It is concluded that despite innovations in the development of the parliamentary dissolution institution, the parliamentary system remains flexible, making it possible to use dissolution as a mechanism for resolving political differences.

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