Politics of Finland


Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. The Judiciary consists of two systems, regular courts and administrative courts, headed by the Supreme Court and the Supreme Administrative Court, respectively. Administrative courts process cases where official decisions are contested. There is no "Constitutional Court", i.e. the constitutionality of a law cannot be contested.





The Constitution was rewritten on March 1, 2000 after first being adopted in July 17 1919. The former constitution consisted of four constitutional laws and several amendments, which the new constitution replaces. The civil law system is based on Swedish law. The Supreme Court or korkein oikeus may request legistlation that interprets or modifies existing laws. Judges are appointed by the president.


Executive branch

Finland has a semi-presidential system with Parliamentarism. The President of Finland is formally responsible for foreign policy. Most executive power lies in the cabinet (the Finnish Council of State) headed by the prime minister. Responsibility for forming the cabinet out of several political parties and negotiating its platform is granted to the leader of the party gaining largest support in the elections for the parliament. This person also becomes prime minister of the cabinet. Any minister and the cabinet as a whole however must have continuing trust of the parliament and may be voted out, resign or be replaced. The Council of State is made up of the prime minister and the ministers for the various departments of the central government as well as an ex-officio member, the Chancellor of Justice.



Main article: President of Finland

Elected for a six year term, the president:

  • Is Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces;
  • Has some decree and appointive powers
  • Approves laws, and may call extraordinary parliamentary sessions
  • Formally appoints the Prime Minister of Finland selected by the Parliament, and formally appoints the rest of the cabinet (Council of State) as proposed by the Prime Minister

Council of State

Main article: Cabinet of Finland

The Council of State is made up of the prime minister and ministers for the various departments of the central government as well as an ex-officio member, the Chancellor of Justice. Ministers are not obliged to be members of the Eduskunta (parliament) and need not be formally identified with any political party.

The president, after hearing the parliament, nominates a prime minister candidate for the parliament to approve in a vote. The prime minister chooses the rest of the cabinet, which is formally appointed by the president.

Responsibility in the European Union

There is currently an ongoing controversy who is the primary representative of Finland for the EU, the president or the prime minister. The 2000 rewrite of the constitution did not address this problem. Implicitly it places EU matters under internal policy and therefore for the prime minister. On the contrary, discourse with other leaders of states constitutes implementing foreign policy, which is the president's responsibility.

An amendment has been recently added to the constitution to demarcate at least the responsibility for EU military operations, which are unambiguously matters of national security and foreign policy. Nevertheless, a full demarcation has not been done. It has been asked if President Tarja Halonen represent only Finland or the entire EU when she met President of Russia Vladimir Putin.



The parliament has, since equal and common suffrage was introduced in 1906, been dominated by secular Conservatives, the Centre Party (former Agrarian Union), and Social Democrats. Nevertheless, none of these has held a single-party majority, with the notable exception of 1916 elections where Social Democrats gained 103 of the 200 seats. After 1944 Communists were a factor to consider for a few decades, and the Finnish People's Democratic League, formed by Communists and others to the left of Social Democrats, even was the largest party after 1958 elections. Support for Communists decreased sharply in the early 1980s, while later on the same decade environmentalists formed the Green League, which is now a medium-sized party. The Swedish People's Party represents Finland-Swedes, especially in language politics. The relative strengths of the parties vary only slightly in the elections due to the proportional election from multi-member districts but there are some visible long-term trends.

Political parties and elections

Finland's proportional representation system encourages a multitude of political parties and has resulted in many coalition-cabinets. Formerly the life expectancy of the coalition governments has been short, but since about 1980 the trend has been that the same coalition rules for the whole period between elections.

Finland elects on national level a head of state - the president - and a legislature. The president is elected for a six year term by the people. The Diet (eduskunta/Riksdag) has 200 members, elected for a four year term by proportional representation in multi-seat constituencies. Finland has a multi-party system, with three strong parties, in which no one party often has a chance of gaining power alone, and parties must work with each other to form coalition governments.


Judicial system

The judicial system of Finland is divided between courts with regular civil and criminal jurisdiction and administrative courts with responsibility for litigation between the individuals and the administrative organs of the state and the communities. Their jurisdiction can be illustrated with an example: Parents unsatisfied with the school placement of their child would appeal against the board of education in an administrative court as the school placement is subject to an administrative decision. Finnish law is codified and its court system consists of local courts, regional appellate courts, and the Supreme Court. The administrative branch of justice consists of administrative courts and the Supreme Administrative Court. The administrative process has more popularity as it is cheaper and has lower financial risk to the person making claims. In addition to the regular courts, there are a few special courts in certain branches of administration. There is also a High Court of Impeachment for criminal charges (for an offence in office) against the President of the Republic, the justices of the supreme courts, members of the Council of State, the Chancellor of Justice and the Ombudsman of Parliament.


Administrative divisions

Finland is divided to democratically independent municipalities. A municipality can call itself either a "city" or "municipality". A municipality is governed by a municipal council (or city council) elected by proportional representation once every four years. Most of the tax burden, namely two thirds, is levied by the municipalities. Democratic decisionmaking takes place on either the municipal or national level with few exceptions.

Municipalities co-operate in subregions and regions. Moreover, the capital zone has a Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council (YTV, Pääkaupunkiseudun yhteistyövaltuuskunta).

The state organization is divided into six provinces. The 5 mainland provinces are administered by provincial boards composed of civil servants, each headed by a presidentially appointed governor. The boards are responsible to the Ministry of the Interior and play a supervisory and coordinating role within the provinces.


Foreign relations

Main article: Foreign relations of Finland



See also

External links

Search another word or see decisionmakingon Dictionary | Thesaurus |Spanish
Copyright © 2014, LLC. All rights reserved.
  • Please Login or Sign Up to use the Recent Searches feature