Trust in members of parliaments: the role and limits of law

As in most of the world’s parliamentary democracies, the last few years have been marked by many political scandals in the Belgian federal State. A lot of levels of government have recently been affected by them (mismanagement of public money at the Walloon Parliament, opacity of parliamentary travel at the Parliament of the French Community, privileged pension system for former presidents of assemblies at the House of Representatives, etc.). Public authorities react to these scandals in different ways. On the political front, the "presumed guilty politicians" can be forced to resign and replaced by new rulers who have behaved in an irreproachable conduct. On the judicial level, elected officials may be subject to financial penalties or detention (see the arrests following the Qatargate scandal in the European Parliament). In the legislative field, ad hoc rules - such as political ethics rules - are in place to moralise the elected officials and respond to the decline of trust caused by these scandals. Our research addresses this last issue.
Our presentation will focus on two main elements of our current work. First, in a legal and interdisciplinary approach, we will discuss the relations between the concepts of political trust and parliamentarian representation. Trust radiates in an implicit way throughout constitutional systems, particularly in the relationship between citizens and their elected representatives. Yet, despite the tremendous impact of this notion on the functioning of the parliamentary systems, legal literature has not yet given seriousconsideration to the subject. Based on an interdisciplinary analysis, we will attempt to identify the essential
characteristics of the relationship of trust between representatives and represented body. Then, the identification of these elements will help us to explain the method we intend to use to criticise the Belgian legislative standards aimed at restoring citizen trust