2024

DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.31178/AUBD/2024.15

Abstract:Parliamentary questionsand interpellations have rarely attracted the attention of legal scholars, despite their extensive use as a means of parliamentary oversight of the government by the opposition. The lack of research has been accompanied by a poor understanding of these two instruments in parliamentary practice, as they are used interchangeably in the vast majority of cases. For its part, the Constitutional Court has not made a clear distinction between the two, limiting itself to consistently listing them as means of parliamentary oversight of the government. The introduction into parliamentary rules of procedure of similar oversight instruments, such as “Government Hour,” has reinforced the preexisting confusion. We therefore aim, through this study, to clarify the distinctions regarding the purpose, manner of use, and effects of questions and interpellations, respectively, in the hope of correcting future parliamentary practice.

Keywords:questions, parliamentary inquiries, parliamentary oversight, government accountability