The Third Greek National Assembly

Greek National Assembly

The Greek National Assemblies are representative bodies of the Greek people. During and in the direct aftermath of the Greek War of Independence , the name was used for the insurgents' proto-parliamentary assemblies...

 at Troezen

Troezen

Troezen is a small town and a former municipality in the northeastern Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Troizinia, of which it is a municipal unit....

was convened during the latter stages of the Greek Revolution.

Convening of the Assembly

The long-delayed Third National Assembly was initially convened in April 1826 at Piada

Epidaurus

Epidaurus was a small city in ancient Greece, at the Saronic Gulf. Two modern towns bear the name Epidavros : Palaia Epidavros and Nea Epidavros. Since 2010 they belong to the new municipality of Epidavros, part of the peripheral unit of Argolis...

, but cut short by the news of the Fall of Missolonghi. Attempts to arrange a new Assembly in the autumn also failed due to disagreements among the various factions. Instead, two rival assemblies were established at Aegina

Aegina

Aegina is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born in and ruled the island. During ancient times, Aegina was a rival to Athens, the great sea power of the era.-Municipality:The municipality...

 and Kastri

Ermioni

Ermioni is a small town and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Ermionida, of which it is a municipal unit. It is a popular tourist resort. It is on a very small out-cropping of the land facing the island of...

. Finally, after much deliberation, all parties agreed to participate in an assembly at Troezen. 168 delegates assembled there on 19 March 1827, under the chairmanship of Georgios Sisinis

Georgios Sisinis

Georg Sisinis was a Greek politician and a Greek revolutionary leader.-Biography:He was born in Gastouni in the modern Ilia Prefecture and descended from a rich and historic family of the area. During the Ottoman rule, he was a chief of Gastouni. He had participated in the Secret Society in 1819...

.

Election of Capodistrias

Having suffered from internal dissensions, the Assembly decided to create a supreme post to preside over the Executive, creating thus the office of Governor of Greece, to which it elected the then most distinguished Greek, Count John Capodistria, for a seven-year term, on April 3. A Governmental Commission was set up to administer Greece until his arrival.

The new Constitution

On 1 May, the Assembly approved by vote of the Political Constitution of Greece

Greek Constitution of 1827

The Greek Constitution of 1827 was signed and ratified in June 1827 by the Third National Assembly at Troezen during the latter stages of the Greek War of Independence and represented the first major step towards realizing a centralised system of Government pooling together some of the more...

. For the first time, the Constitution was not labeled "Provisional", signaling the Greek aspirations for complete independence from the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

. This Constitution consisted of 150 articles. It established key principles in Greek Constitutional history which remain to this day, such as the statement "Sovereignty lies with the people; every power derives from the people and exists for the people". It established a strict separation of powers

Separation of powers

The separation of powers, often imprecisely used interchangeably with the trias politica principle, is a model for the governance of a state. The model was first developed in ancient Greece and came into widespread use by the Roman Republic as part of the unmodified Constitution of the Roman Republic...

, vesting the executive power to the Governor and assigning to the body of the representatives of the people, named Boule

Boule (Ancient Greece)

In cities of ancient Greece, the boule meaning to will ) was a council of citizens appointed to run daily affairs of the city...

, the legislative power. The Governor only had a suspending veto on the bills, and lacked the right to dissolve the Parliament. He was inviolable, while the Secretaries of the State, in other words the Ministers, assumed the responsibility for his public actions (thus introducing into the text of the 1827 Constitution the first elements of the so called parliamentary principle).

On 4 May 1827, a day before its dissolution, the Assembly also voted for establishing Nafplion

Nafplion

Nafplio is a seaport town in the Peloponnese in Greece that has expanded up the hillsides near the north end of the Argolic Gulf. The town was the first capital of modern Greece, from the start of the Greek Revolution in 1821 until 1834. Nafplio is now the capital of the peripheral unit of...

as the capital of Greece and seat of both parliament and government.