Chapter Twelve
Legislative Authority
Dr Khalil Hussein
Professor at Lebanese University
Director of studies at Lebanese Parliament
The main institutions of law in industrialized countries are independent courts, representative parliaments, an accountable executive.
The separation of powers[1] between the institutions that wield political influence, namely the judiciary, legislature and executive. Their principle was that no person should be able to usurp all powers of the state, in contrast to the absolutist theory of Thomas Hobbes'. More recently, Max Weber and many others reshaped thinking about the extensions of the state that come under the control of the executive.
Parliament
A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modelled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French parlement, the action of parler (to speak): a parlement is a talk, a discussion, hence a meeting (an assembly, a court) where people discuss matters[2].
Parliamentary government
Legislatures called parliaments typically operate under a parliamentary system of government in which the executive is constitutionally answerable to the parliament. This can be contrasted with a presidential system, on the model of the United States' congressional system, which operate under a stricter separation of powers whereby the executive does not form part of, nor is appointed by, the parliamentary or legislative body. Typically, congresses do not select or dismiss heads of governments, and governments cannot request an early dissolution as may be the case for parliaments. Some states have a semi-presidential system which combines a powerful president with an executive responsible to parliament
Parliaments may consist of chambers or houses, and are usually either bicameral or unicameral - although more complex models exist, or have existed .
The lower house is almost always the originator of legislation, and the upper house is usually the body that offers the "second look" and decides whether to veto or approve the bills.
A parliament's lower house is usually composed of at least 200 members in countries with populations of over 3 million. A notable exception is Australia, which has only 150 members in the lower house despite having a population of over 20 million.
The number of seats may exceed 400 in very large countries, especially in the case of unitary states. The upper house customarily has 20, 50, or 100 seats, almost always significantly fewer than the lower house (the British House of Lords is an exception)[3].
A nation's prime minister (PM) is almost always the leader of the majority party in the lower house of parliament, but only holds his or her office as long as the "confidence of the house" is maintained. If members of parliament lose faith in the leader for whatever reason, they can often call a vote of no confidence and force the PM to resign. This can be particularly dangerous to a government when the distribution of seats is relatively even, in which case a new election is often called shortly thereafter.
Origins of parliamentary government
England
The Curia Regis in England was a council of tenants-in-chief and ecclesiastics that advised the King of England on legislative matters. It replaced its Anglo-Saxon predecessor, the Witenagemot, a popular assembly that developed into a sort of crown council, after the Norman invasion of 1066.
William of Normandy brought to England the feudal system of his native Normandy, and sought the advice of the curia regis, before making laws. This body is the germ from which Parliament, the higher courts of law, and the Privy Council and Cabinet have sprung. Of these, the legislature is formally the High Court of Parliament; judges sit in the Supreme Court of Judicature; and only the executive government is no longer conducted in a royal court[4].
The tenants-in-chief often struggled with their spiritual counterparts and with the King for power. In 1215, they secured from John the Magna Carta, which established that the King may not levy or collect any taxes (except the feudal taxes to which they were hitherto accustomed), save with the consent of a council. It was also established that the most important tenants-in-chief and ecclesiastics be summoned to the council by personal writs from the Sovereign, and that all others be summoned to the council by general writs from the sheriffs of their counties. Modern government has its origins in the Curiae Regis; parliament descends from the Great Council later known as the parliamentum established by Magna Carta.
The first English Parliament was formed during the reign of King Henry III in the 13th century. In 1265, Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, who was in rebellion against Henry III, summoned a parliament of his supporters without any or prior royal authorisation. The archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls and barons were summoned, as were two knights from each shire and two burgesses from each borough. Knights had been summoned to previous councils, but the representation of the boroughs was unprecedented. De Montfort's scheme was formally adopted by Edward I in the so-called "Model Parliament" of 1295. At first, each estate debated independently; by the reign of Edward III, however, Parliament had been separated into two Houses and was assuming recognisably its modern form.
France
Originally, there was only the Parlement of Paris, born out of the Curia Regis in 1307, and located inside the medieval royal palace, now the Paris Hall of Justice. The jurisdiction of the Parlement of Paris covered the entire kingdom. In the thirteenth century, judicial functions were added. In 1443, following the turmoil of the Hundred Years' War, King Charles VII of France granted Languedoc its own parlement by establishing the Parlement of Toulouse, the first parlement outside of Paris, whose jurisdiction extended over the most part of southern France. From 1443 until the French Revolution several other parlements were created in some provinces of France.
All the parlements could issue regulatory decrees for the application of royal edicts or of customary practices; they could also refuse to register laws that they judged contrary to fundamental law or simply as being untimely. Parliamentary power in France was suppressed more so than in England as a result of absolutism, and parliaments were eventually overshadowed by the larger Estates General, up until the French Revolution, when the National Assembly became the lower house of France's bicameral legislature. (The Sénat being the upper house)[5].
Russia
The name of the parliament of Russia is the Federal Assembly of Russia. The term for its lower house, Duma (which is better known than the Federal Assembly itself, and is often mistaken for the entirety of the parliament) comes from the Russian word думать (dumat), "to think". The Boyar Duma was an advisory council to the grand princes and tsars of Muscovy. The Duma was discontinued by Peter the Great, who transferred its functions to the Governing Senate in 1711[6].
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The British Parliament is often referred to as the Mother of Parliaments (in fact a misquotation of John Bright, who remarked in 1865 that "England is the Mother of Parliaments" because the British Parliament has been the model for most other parliamentary systems, and its Acts have created many other parliaments. Many nations with parliaments have to some degree emulated the British "three-tier" model. Most countries in Europe and the Commonwealth have similarly organized parliaments with a largely ceremonial head of state who formally opens and closes parliament, a large elected lower house and a smaller, upper house.
The Parliament of the United Kingdom was originally formed in 1707 by the Acts of Union that replaced the former parliaments of England and Scotland - the Irish Parliament was subsumed into the Imperial Parliament in 1801.[7]
In the United Kingdom, Parliament consists of the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the Monarch. The House of Commons is composed of over 600 members who are directly elected by British citizens to represent single-member constituencies. The leader of a Party that wins more than half the seats or less than half but can count on support of smaller parties to achieve enough support to pass law is invited by the Queen to form a government. Legally the Queen is the head of government and no business in Parliament can be taken without her authority. The House of Lords is a body of long-serving, unelected members: 92 of whom inherit their seats and 574 of whom have been appointed to lifetime seats.
Legislation can originate from either the Lords or the Commons[8]. It is voted on in several distinct stages, called readings, in each house. First reading is merely a formality. Second reading is where the bill as a whole is considered. Third reading is detailed consideration of clauses of the bill. In addition to the three readings a bill also goes through a committee stage where it is considered in great detail. Once the bill has been passed by one house it goes to the other and essentially repeats the process. If after the two sets of readings there are disagreements between the versions that the two houses passed it is returned to the first house for consideration of the amendments made by the second. If it passes through the amendment stage Royal Assent is granted and the bill becomes law as an Act of Parliament.
The House of Lords is the less powerful of the two houses as a result of the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949. These Acts removed the veto power of the Lords over a great deal of legislation. If a bill is certified by the Speaker of the House of Commons as a money bill (i.e. acts raising taxes and similar) then the Lords can only block it for a month. If an ordinary bill originates in the Commons the Lords can only block it for a maximum of one session of Parliament. The exceptions to this rule are things like bills to prolong the life of a Parliament beyond five years. If a bill originates in the Lords then the Lords can block it for as long as they like.
In addition to functioning as the second chamber of Parliament, the House of Lords is also the final court of appeal for much of the law of the United Kingdom - a combination of judicial and legislative function that recalls its origin in the Curia Regis[9].
National Assembly
The National Assembly is either a legislature, or the lower house of a bicameral legislature in some countries. The best known National Assembly, and the first legislature to be known by this title, was that established during the French Revolution in 1789, known as the Assemblée nationale. Consequently, the name is particularly common in Francophone countries, but is also found in some Commonwealth countries. In Germany, a Nationalversammlung was elected following the revolutions of 1848-1849 and 1918-1919, to be replaced by a permanent parliament (Reichstag) later[10].
It was also the name of the legislature during France's First Republic and the Consulate, and since 1946 has been the lower house of the French parliament, first under the Fourth Republic, and from 1958, the Fifth Republic.
Congress
In politics, a congress "a gathering of people" is the name of the main legislative body in a state that operates under a congressional system of government. In non-political usage congress is a term applied to a large national or international grouping of people meeting together with common interests or concerns, e.g. an academic conference.
[1] For more details about the separatio between powers see: Robert A. Goldwin, Art Kaufman, Separation of Powers- does it Still Work?, American Enterprise , 1986,p184.
[2] Francis Graham ,The Parliamentary System, University of Michigan, 2005,pp24-67.
[3]Wolfgang C. Muller , Thomas Saalfeld , Members of Parliament in Western Europe, Taylor & Francis Inc,1997,p47.
,
[4] For more details see Alpheus Todd, Parliamentary Government in England: Its Origin, Development, and Practical Operation, Adamant Media Corporationm 2001,ch1.
[5] For more details see J. H. Shennan , The Parlement of Paris, Sutton Publishing NY , 1998.
[6] From the first free elections in post-Soviet Russia in 1989 to the end of the Yeltsin period in 1999, Russia's parliament was the site of great political upheavals. Conflicts between communists and reformers generated constant turmoil, and twice parliamentary institutions broke down in violence. Thomas F Remington, Yale University Press, 2001,p4.
[7] See Thomas Curson Hansard, Great Britain Parliament, The Parliamen tary Debates.
.
[8]William Blackstone, George Sharswood, Laws of England, Harvard University,V2,1860.p12.
[9]Philip Rosenberg, House of Lords, HarperTorch ,2003,ch 2.
[10] See John Fraser Corkran, History of the National Constituent Assembly: From May 1848.especially ch 3.
Legislative Authority
Dr Khalil Hussein
Professor at Lebanese University
Director of studies at Lebanese Parliament
The main institutions of law in industrialized countries are independent courts, representative parliaments, an accountable executive.
The separation of powers[1] between the institutions that wield political influence, namely the judiciary, legislature and executive. Their principle was that no person should be able to usurp all powers of the state, in contrast to the absolutist theory of Thomas Hobbes'. More recently, Max Weber and many others reshaped thinking about the extensions of the state that come under the control of the executive.
Parliament
A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modelled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French parlement, the action of parler (to speak): a parlement is a talk, a discussion, hence a meeting (an assembly, a court) where people discuss matters[2].
Parliamentary government
Legislatures called parliaments typically operate under a parliamentary system of government in which the executive is constitutionally answerable to the parliament. This can be contrasted with a presidential system, on the model of the United States' congressional system, which operate under a stricter separation of powers whereby the executive does not form part of, nor is appointed by, the parliamentary or legislative body. Typically, congresses do not select or dismiss heads of governments, and governments cannot request an early dissolution as may be the case for parliaments. Some states have a semi-presidential system which combines a powerful president with an executive responsible to parliament
Parliaments may consist of chambers or houses, and are usually either bicameral or unicameral - although more complex models exist, or have existed .
The lower house is almost always the originator of legislation, and the upper house is usually the body that offers the "second look" and decides whether to veto or approve the bills.
A parliament's lower house is usually composed of at least 200 members in countries with populations of over 3 million. A notable exception is Australia, which has only 150 members in the lower house despite having a population of over 20 million.
The number of seats may exceed 400 in very large countries, especially in the case of unitary states. The upper house customarily has 20, 50, or 100 seats, almost always significantly fewer than the lower house (the British House of Lords is an exception)[3].
A nation's prime minister (PM) is almost always the leader of the majority party in the lower house of parliament, but only holds his or her office as long as the "confidence of the house" is maintained. If members of parliament lose faith in the leader for whatever reason, they can often call a vote of no confidence and force the PM to resign. This can be particularly dangerous to a government when the distribution of seats is relatively even, in which case a new election is often called shortly thereafter.
Origins of parliamentary government
England
The Curia Regis in England was a council of tenants-in-chief and ecclesiastics that advised the King of England on legislative matters. It replaced its Anglo-Saxon predecessor, the Witenagemot, a popular assembly that developed into a sort of crown council, after the Norman invasion of 1066.
William of Normandy brought to England the feudal system of his native Normandy, and sought the advice of the curia regis, before making laws. This body is the germ from which Parliament, the higher courts of law, and the Privy Council and Cabinet have sprung. Of these, the legislature is formally the High Court of Parliament; judges sit in the Supreme Court of Judicature; and only the executive government is no longer conducted in a royal court[4].
The tenants-in-chief often struggled with their spiritual counterparts and with the King for power. In 1215, they secured from John the Magna Carta, which established that the King may not levy or collect any taxes (except the feudal taxes to which they were hitherto accustomed), save with the consent of a council. It was also established that the most important tenants-in-chief and ecclesiastics be summoned to the council by personal writs from the Sovereign, and that all others be summoned to the council by general writs from the sheriffs of their counties. Modern government has its origins in the Curiae Regis; parliament descends from the Great Council later known as the parliamentum established by Magna Carta.
The first English Parliament was formed during the reign of King Henry III in the 13th century. In 1265, Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, who was in rebellion against Henry III, summoned a parliament of his supporters without any or prior royal authorisation. The archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls and barons were summoned, as were two knights from each shire and two burgesses from each borough. Knights had been summoned to previous councils, but the representation of the boroughs was unprecedented. De Montfort's scheme was formally adopted by Edward I in the so-called "Model Parliament" of 1295. At first, each estate debated independently; by the reign of Edward III, however, Parliament had been separated into two Houses and was assuming recognisably its modern form.
France
Originally, there was only the Parlement of Paris, born out of the Curia Regis in 1307, and located inside the medieval royal palace, now the Paris Hall of Justice. The jurisdiction of the Parlement of Paris covered the entire kingdom. In the thirteenth century, judicial functions were added. In 1443, following the turmoil of the Hundred Years' War, King Charles VII of France granted Languedoc its own parlement by establishing the Parlement of Toulouse, the first parlement outside of Paris, whose jurisdiction extended over the most part of southern France. From 1443 until the French Revolution several other parlements were created in some provinces of France.
All the parlements could issue regulatory decrees for the application of royal edicts or of customary practices; they could also refuse to register laws that they judged contrary to fundamental law or simply as being untimely. Parliamentary power in France was suppressed more so than in England as a result of absolutism, and parliaments were eventually overshadowed by the larger Estates General, up until the French Revolution, when the National Assembly became the lower house of France's bicameral legislature. (The Sénat being the upper house)[5].
Russia
The name of the parliament of Russia is the Federal Assembly of Russia. The term for its lower house, Duma (which is better known than the Federal Assembly itself, and is often mistaken for the entirety of the parliament) comes from the Russian word думать (dumat), "to think". The Boyar Duma was an advisory council to the grand princes and tsars of Muscovy. The Duma was discontinued by Peter the Great, who transferred its functions to the Governing Senate in 1711[6].
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The British Parliament is often referred to as the Mother of Parliaments (in fact a misquotation of John Bright, who remarked in 1865 that "England is the Mother of Parliaments" because the British Parliament has been the model for most other parliamentary systems, and its Acts have created many other parliaments. Many nations with parliaments have to some degree emulated the British "three-tier" model. Most countries in Europe and the Commonwealth have similarly organized parliaments with a largely ceremonial head of state who formally opens and closes parliament, a large elected lower house and a smaller, upper house.
The Parliament of the United Kingdom was originally formed in 1707 by the Acts of Union that replaced the former parliaments of England and Scotland - the Irish Parliament was subsumed into the Imperial Parliament in 1801.[7]
In the United Kingdom, Parliament consists of the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the Monarch. The House of Commons is composed of over 600 members who are directly elected by British citizens to represent single-member constituencies. The leader of a Party that wins more than half the seats or less than half but can count on support of smaller parties to achieve enough support to pass law is invited by the Queen to form a government. Legally the Queen is the head of government and no business in Parliament can be taken without her authority. The House of Lords is a body of long-serving, unelected members: 92 of whom inherit their seats and 574 of whom have been appointed to lifetime seats.
Legislation can originate from either the Lords or the Commons[8]. It is voted on in several distinct stages, called readings, in each house. First reading is merely a formality. Second reading is where the bill as a whole is considered. Third reading is detailed consideration of clauses of the bill. In addition to the three readings a bill also goes through a committee stage where it is considered in great detail. Once the bill has been passed by one house it goes to the other and essentially repeats the process. If after the two sets of readings there are disagreements between the versions that the two houses passed it is returned to the first house for consideration of the amendments made by the second. If it passes through the amendment stage Royal Assent is granted and the bill becomes law as an Act of Parliament.
The House of Lords is the less powerful of the two houses as a result of the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949. These Acts removed the veto power of the Lords over a great deal of legislation. If a bill is certified by the Speaker of the House of Commons as a money bill (i.e. acts raising taxes and similar) then the Lords can only block it for a month. If an ordinary bill originates in the Commons the Lords can only block it for a maximum of one session of Parliament. The exceptions to this rule are things like bills to prolong the life of a Parliament beyond five years. If a bill originates in the Lords then the Lords can block it for as long as they like.
In addition to functioning as the second chamber of Parliament, the House of Lords is also the final court of appeal for much of the law of the United Kingdom - a combination of judicial and legislative function that recalls its origin in the Curia Regis[9].
National Assembly
The National Assembly is either a legislature, or the lower house of a bicameral legislature in some countries. The best known National Assembly, and the first legislature to be known by this title, was that established during the French Revolution in 1789, known as the Assemblée nationale. Consequently, the name is particularly common in Francophone countries, but is also found in some Commonwealth countries. In Germany, a Nationalversammlung was elected following the revolutions of 1848-1849 and 1918-1919, to be replaced by a permanent parliament (Reichstag) later[10].
It was also the name of the legislature during France's First Republic and the Consulate, and since 1946 has been the lower house of the French parliament, first under the Fourth Republic, and from 1958, the Fifth Republic.
Congress
In politics, a congress "a gathering of people" is the name of the main legislative body in a state that operates under a congressional system of government. In non-political usage congress is a term applied to a large national or international grouping of people meeting together with common interests or concerns, e.g. an academic conference.
[1] For more details about the separatio between powers see: Robert A. Goldwin, Art Kaufman, Separation of Powers- does it Still Work?, American Enterprise , 1986,p184.
[2] Francis Graham ,The Parliamentary System, University of Michigan, 2005,pp24-67.
[3]Wolfgang C. Muller , Thomas Saalfeld , Members of Parliament in Western Europe, Taylor & Francis Inc,1997,p47.
,
[4] For more details see Alpheus Todd, Parliamentary Government in England: Its Origin, Development, and Practical Operation, Adamant Media Corporationm 2001,ch1.
[5] For more details see J. H. Shennan , The Parlement of Paris, Sutton Publishing NY , 1998.
[6] From the first free elections in post-Soviet Russia in 1989 to the end of the Yeltsin period in 1999, Russia's parliament was the site of great political upheavals. Conflicts between communists and reformers generated constant turmoil, and twice parliamentary institutions broke down in violence. Thomas F Remington, Yale University Press, 2001,p4.
[7] See Thomas Curson Hansard, Great Britain Parliament, The Parliamen tary Debates.
.
[8]William Blackstone, George Sharswood, Laws of England, Harvard University,V2,1860.p12.
[9]Philip Rosenberg, House of Lords, HarperTorch ,2003,ch 2.
[10] See John Fraser Corkran, History of the National Constituent Assembly: From May 1848.especially ch 3.
