ABSTRACT
The article’s purpose is the accountability theory of Benjamin Constant’s ministers. It intends to analyze that theory from a different angle from the one related to the maturation of the parliamentary regime in France – often the reference framework by which one evaluates Constant’s elaboration about that. Seeking to understand the specific political problem that the author was trying to solve within his historical context, we claim that the issue was how to carry out, according to the State of Law, an arbitrary judgement of governmental actions that could only be considered crimes as a result of a political contingency that can’t fall within the law. One can demonstrate the uniqueness of this concern by Constant by means of a contrast with other interpretations of the French Charter of 1814 formulated early in the Restoration, which sought to move away the arbitrary decision and submit the political dynamics to fixed principles.
Benjamin Constant; accountability of the ministers; arbitration; contingency; Restoration