## Facts

- Parliament enacted a statute authorizing the executive, for a limited period, to adopt ordinances in areas ordinarily reserved to legislation, including prices, competition, public enterprises, employment, and social protection.
- The authorization set general objectives and identified thematic fields but left specific policy mechanisms to later ordinances.
- More than sixty members of each legislative chamber sought pre-promulgation constitutional review, challenging both legislative procedure and the breadth of the delegation.
- The challengers argued that mandatory consultation with an advisory economic and social body was required and that the authorization was too imprecise under the constitutional rules governing delegation.
- They also contended the authorization would enable unconstitutional measures, including improper privatization terms, unequal treatment of groups, retroactive rules, and interference with protected governmental competences.

## Issues

1. Whether the statute was enacted through constitutionally valid legislative procedure, including whether required institutional consultation was omitted.
2. Whether the enabling statute defined the purpose and scope of the delegation with sufficient precision to satisfy constitutional requirements for authorizing ordinances.
3. Whether the authorization impermissibly permitted future ordinances that could violate constitutional constraints on privatization, equality, non-retroactivity (particularly in penal matters), and protected governmental competences.

## Decision

- The court upheld the statute as constitutional, subject to interpretive reservations that limited how the authorization could be used.
- It rejected procedural challenges, finding constitutional legislative requirements satisfied and concluding that the advisory body’s consultation was not mandatory because the statute did not itself contain quantified expenditure forecasts triggering consultation.
- It held the delegation standard was met because the statute identified objectives, subject-matter areas, and a time limit; the legislature need not specify the detailed content of future ordinances in advance.
- It imposed substantive limits on the use of the authorization, including that any transfer of public enterprises to the private sector must protect the state’s patrimonial interests and respect national independence.
- It confirmed that any ordinances adopted under the statute remained fully subject to constitutional review for compliance with equality, non-retroactivity of penal provisions, conditions governing nationalizations/denationalizations, and protected competences such as local self-administration.

## Legal Principles

- A legislature may authorize executive ordinances for a limited period if it sufficiently states the authorization’s objectives and the fields in which measures may be taken; it need not predetermine the precise content of future ordinances.
- Failure to consult an advisory body is not unconstitutional unless consultation is constitutionally or statutorily mandatory for the type of bill at issue (including triggers tied to quantified expenditure forecasts).
- Delegated economic legislation concerning public enterprises cannot be implemented in a manner that sacrifices the state’s patrimonial interests or compromises national independence; interpretive reservations may condition the authorization’s constitutionality on these constraints.
- The equality principle permits different treatment of different situations and targeted measures favoring disadvantaged categories when justified by the pursued objective and rationally connected to it.
- Ordinances issued under an enabling act remain bound by constitutional constraints, including non-retroactivity of penal rules, constitutional requirements governing nationalizations/denationalizations, and protections for local self-administration.

## Conclusion

The court sustained a broad, time-limited economic enabling act under the constitutional delegation mechanism, while conditioning its validity on interpretive limits requiring that future ordinances protect state assets and national independence and comply with core constitutional guarantees such as equality and non-retroactivity.


Economic Authorization Case (On the Law Authorizing the Government to Take Diverse Measures Concerning the Economic and Social Order), 86-207 DC (Fr. Const. Council 1986)