De la responsabilidad de los ministros

Benjamin Constant published his booklet On the responsibility of ministers in 1815. There is a second edition from 1817. The text appeared a few months after the promulgation of the Constitutional Charter of June 4, 1814, called to rule in France after the Bourbon restoration . The author's intention was surely to help ensure that this constitutional text was interpreted and applied in the light of the experience of England at the time, in such a way that it served as the basis for a truly liberal regime and, consequently, so far removed from reaction absolutist as well as Jacobin and Bonapartist authoritarianism. Thus, Constant exposes the English theory and practice in matters of ministerial responsibility, which are condensed in the institution of impeachment. His central idea is that ministerial responsibility is an indispensable condition for the existence of a liberal regime. However, from an intellectual point of view and beyond the political intention, the main problem was that the very idea of ministers' responsibility was far from clear, even at that time.