Enabling act

An enabling act is a piece of legislation by which a legislative body grants an entity which depends on it for authorization or legitimacy of power to take certain actions. For example, enabling acts often establish government agencies to carry out specific government policies in a modern nation. The effects of enabling acts from different times and places vary widely.

The German word for an enabling act is Ermächtigungsgesetz. It usually refers to the enabling act of 23 March 1933, which became a cornerstone of Adolf Hitler's seizure of power.

The first enabling act is dated from 4 August 1914 just after the outbreak of World War I. With the vote of the Social Democrats, the Reichstag (the parliament) agreed to give the government certain powers to take the necessary economic measures during the war. Such enabling acts were also common in other countries. The Reichstag had to be informed, and had the right to abolish a decree based on the enabling act. This ensured that the government used its rights with care and only in rare cases was a decree abolished. The parliament retained its right to make law.

In the Weimar Republic (1919–1933), there were several enabling acts: three in 1919, one in 1920 and one in 1921, three in 1923, one in 1926 and one in 1927. The enabling act on 24 February 1923, originally limited until 1 June but extended until 31 October, empowered the cabinet to resist the Occupation of the Ruhr. There was an enabling act on 13 October 1923 and an enabling act on 8 December 1923 that would last until the dissolution of the Reichstag on 13 March 1924.

Most of them had a temporal limit but only vague thematic limits. On the basis of these acts, a vast number of decrees were signed with enormous importance for social and economic life, the judicial system, and taxes. For example, the reform of German currency, the establishment of a single, national railway system and unemployment pay were settled via such decrees (Vollmacht-Verordnungen). The Emminger Reform of 4 January 1924 abolished the jury as trier of fact and replaced it with a mixed system of judges and lay judges in Germany's judiciary which still exists today.

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