History
After Finland's independence and the Civil War in Finland the matter of whether Finland should be a republic or a constitutional monarchy was much debated (see Frederick Charles of Hesse), and the outcome was a compromise: a rather monarchy-like, strong presidency with great powers over Finland's foreign affairs, the appointment of the Council of State and the officers of the civil service. The Constitution was changed in 2000, to redistribute some of this power to the Parliament and the Council of State. The new constitution specifies how the principles of Parliamentarism are to be followed. Most significantly, the President can no longer nominate the Prime Minister or individual ministers independently. For example, this power was previously used to form governments where the party in plurality was excluded. Regarding the right to dissolve parliament, consultation with the Prime Minister and heads of parliamentary groups was made mandatory before the parliament could be dissolved and new elections ordered. Furthermore, some appointing powers, such as appointment of Provincial Governors and department heads at ministries, were transferred to the Cabinet of Finland.
Read more about this topic: President Of Finland
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“All history and art are against us, but we still expect happiness in love.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“The history of all Magazines shows plainly that those which have attained celebrity were indebted for it to articles similar in natureto Berenice—although, I grant you, far superior in style and execution. I say similar in nature. You ask me in what does this nature consist? In the ludicrous heightened into the grotesque: the fearful coloured into the horrible: the witty exaggerated into the burlesque: the singular wrought out into the strange and mystical.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)