binet one such
minister for Galicia. All ministers are appointed and dismissed by the
Emperor. Under the leadership of a president of the council or premier
(without portfolio), they serve as the Emperor's councillors, execute
his will, and administer the affairs of their respective branches of
the public service. It is provided by fundamental law that they shall
be responsible for the constitutionality and legality of governmental
acts performed within the sphere of their powers.[663] They are
responsible to the two branches of the national parliament alike, and
may be interpellated or impeached by either. For impeachment an (p. 465)
elaborate procedure is prescribed, though thus far it has not proved
of practical utility. Every law promulgated in the Emperor's name must
bear the signature of a responsible minister, and several sorts of
ordinances--such as those proclaiming a state of siege or suspending
the constitutional rights of a citizen--require the concurrent
signature of the entire ministry. Every minister possesses the right
to sit and to speak in either chamber of the Reichsrath, where the
policy of the Government may call for explanation or defense, and
where there are at least occasional interpellations to be answered.

[Footnote 662: There is a joint ministry of
finance, though each of the monarchies maintains a
separate ministry for the administration of its own
fiscal affairs. On the joint ministries see p.
510.]

[Footnote 663: Law concerning the Exercise of
Administrative and Executive Power, December 21,
1867, Sec. 9. Dodd, Modern Constitutions, I.,
88-89.]

Nominally, the parliamentary system is in vogue, but at best it
operates only indifferently. Supposedly responsible, collectively and
individually, to the Reichsrath, the ministers are in practice far
more dependent upon the Emperor than upon the chambers. In France the
inability of political parties to coalesce into two great opposing
groups largely defeats the best ends of the parliamentary system. In
Austria the numerous and ineradicable racial divisions deflect the
system further still from the lines upon which theoretically it should
operate. No political group is sufficiently powerful to rule alone,
and no working affiliation can long be made to subsist. The
conseque