Parliament

PARLIAMENT. —

I. HISTORY

Some of these assemblies had their roots in a very remote age, such as the assembly of the Kingdom of Italy in the 11th–13th centuries, which was connected with the Carolingian assembly and, through it, with that formed by dukes, gastaldi, the King’s followers, and part of the people: the exercitus of the Lombard Kingdom. In general, however, such assemblies were formed in the 13th–14th centuries, that is, toward the end of the properly feudal age. It was membership in the privileged classes and bodies characteristic of the feudal age that determined who had the right to take part in the general assemblies and influenced the formation of the provincial ones. The latter appear to have been constituted through the fusion of meetings held in the great territories, duchies, or marches, for the safeguarding of the peace and to assist the royal envoys in the administration of justice—meetings composed of the maiores terrae—with other meetings convened by the duke or marquis to obtain counsel from his vassals. When, in the 13th century, the dukes or marquises wished to resume power over their territories with greater vigor, these various provincial assemblies were merged and assumed a more distinct form. One of their chief aims was to defend the privileges of the “estates” against abuses by the princes and their officials. Numerous assemblies thus arose in Europe called “estates,” although this word more properly designated the various orders of which the assembly was composed. Thus, in France, people spoke of the “estates-general” to designate the general assembly of the Kingdom. The designation “provincial estates” was introduced by historians to indicate those that met in the great provinces of the Kingdom, such as Dauphiné, Savoy, Normandy, etc. The documents speak only of états de Normandie, or de Savoye. The term p. prevailed above all in England and Italy.

The normal organization of these p. was founded on the three “estates” already mentioned. The first was composed of ecclesiastics: they must already have been present in the assemblies of the Lombard Kingdom and continued to participate in the Carolingian and later assemblies as great dignitaries of the Kingdom, in whose hands the election of the King frequently lay. As for the provincial assemblies, the clergy took part in them because of the extensive jurisdictions it enjoyed and the large tracts of land it owned, as well as because of its eminent position in the province. The ecclesiastical “estate,” or “arm,” in the provincial assemblies consisted of bishops, Chapters, abbeys, and monasteries. The former, as well as the abbots, attended in person; the others sent procurators.

In the “estate” of the feudatories, or barons, as they were called in Sicily, several categories of different origin were sometimes distinguished. An essential requirement was direct dependence on the prince. Not infrequently, the right to attend belonged not to an individual but to a feudal family, and the family’s internal rules established who was to attend the p. on its behalf and how turns were to be arranged among those entitled. If several persons attended, they had a single vote. As for the towns, their right to participate in the assembly depended either on a custom established during the p.’s initial formation or on a special privilege granted by the prince. Direct dependence on him was likewise an essential condition for the towns: in the Kingdom of Sicily this was described as possessing the status of “demanial,” and the arm of the towns, or “universities,” was therefore called the demanial arm. The towns were represented in the p. by delegates who rarely had a full mandate; most often they had to report back and obtain the assent of the municipal Council for the proposed decisions. The constitution of the p. with three “estates” is the normal arrangement; it must be observed, however, that in its origins the assembly was composed only of ecclesiastics and feudatories, while the towns were added later. In the assembly of the Kingdom of Italy this seems to have occurred around 1130. It occurred later in the Sicilian P. and later still in the English P. (1265). In the 16th century, the P. of the Marches was reduced to an assembly of representatives of Communes, because ecclesiastics and feudal lords no longer took part in II.
As for the manner of meeting, it should be noted that in Sicily, originally, the three “estates,” or “arms,” assembled together, but later, under the influence of Spanish customs, each sat separately. In the English P., the Upper House was constituted by the clergy and barons, while the other included the country nobles and representatives of the Communes.

Parliamentary competence was defined by fixed rules only at a relatively late period. For a long time, in many p., including the English one, a large part of the sittings was occupied by the discussion and adjudication of judicial matters: a competence transmitted to them by the more ancient assemblies, to which proceedings of great importance were referred and which, moreover, decided disputes arising among their own members. Subsequently, this competence was reduced to extraordinary cases, and the principal subject of parliamentary debates became financial burdens. This aspect of their competence was the most important for the development of the powers of the p., because it took advantage of the prince’s requests to obtain, in return, reforms in legislation and administration or other measures. This gave rise to the formation of a conception of the relations between the “estates” and the prince as a relationship of a contractual nature. The granting of such subsidies also enabled the “estates” to supervise the prince’s officials, to ascertain whether the money granted had been spent as agreed; this opened the way to control over public administration.

Another important function was legislative, which was an original power of the general assemblies, whereas, with regard to the provincial p., it received recognition in a decision of the Imperial Council of 1231, according to which princes could not issue new constitutions or nova iura without the consent of the maiores et meliores terrae. The p. also had special competence regarding military measures.

As for the functioning of these assemblies, there was considerable variety, depending on the authority the p. had acquired. In the territories and periods in which it exercised extensive influence over public affairs and also affected foreign policy, as occurred with the Piedmontese P. in the 15th and 16th centuries and with the Friulian P. before the fall of the government of the Patriarch of Aquileia, parliamentary sittings were very frequent, and the council, the permanent organ of the p., met without interruption. By contrast, the Sicilian P., during Spanish rule, can be seen meeting ordinarily once every three years.

Nowhere in Europe did the parliament assume such an independent position vis-à-vis the sovereign as occurred in England after the Revolution of 1688, which drove King James II from the throne. From that time, the English House of Commons began the evolution that, through successive stages, made it the model for all the others. There is no example of a similar evolution on the Continent. In some countries, however, particularly in Germany, the “estates” placed themselves before the prince as a power equivalent to his own, so that a genuine dualism arose within the principality. This did not occur in the Italian parliaments, which instead progressively declined in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, owing to the absolutist designs of the princes, who viewed with suspicion these bodies that limited their power, especially in the financial sphere: these were the same tendencies that led the kings of France not to convene the “Estates General” from 1614 onward, until the revolutionary wave of 1789 compelled them to summon them again. At the end of the eighteenth century, the following still existed in Italy: the Sicilian Parliament, the “stamenti,” or estates, of Sardinia, the Parliament of the Marches, and that of Friuli. All had been reduced to empty shadows and represented a society dominated by privilege that was soon to disappear. On the other hand, when the sovereigns, dispossessed of their states by Napoleon, succeeded in recovering them, they showed no desire to restore those old parliaments, wishing instead to give full scope to absolutism.

Only the Sicilian Parliament had a brief and interesting history during the period 1812–15. It was reorganized in 1812, taking the English Parliament as its model; a House of Lords and a House of Commons were therefore created. The experiment failed, both because of the parliamentarians’ inexperience and because of the difficulty of taking root in Sicilian soil institutions of foreign origin, but above all because of the hostility of King Ferdinando III, who, on 14 May 1815, dissolved the Parliament and never summoned it again.

In states with a bicameral p., the expression itself is not infrequently used solely to indicate the elected chamber, when the other is not elected; whereas in England it has a broader and more specific meaning, embracing all three legislative bodies (namely, the king, the Houses of Lords and Commons), while in the United States and in the countries of Latin America the legislative assemblies are usually designated collectively by the term Congress.

1. Bicameralism. — In the great majority of contemporary states the p. is bicameral, that is, constituted by two distinct chambers (the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic in Italy, the National Assembly and the Council of the Republic in France, the House of Representatives and the Senate in North America, etc.). Apart from certain small states (Luxembourg, Monaco, S. Marino, etc.), only Turkey, Spain, and certain European satellite states of the USSR today have a unicameral p.

Bicameralism nevertheless arose in an entirely empirical manner in England, during the first half of the fourteenth century, when the original single p. split into two distinct bodies: one comprising the high feudal lords, lay and ecclesiastical (the so-called temporal and spiritual lords, summoned individually), and the other the representatives of the boroughs and counties (burgesses and knights), designated by their respective communities. During the nineteenth century, however, almost all European Constitutions adopted it deliberately, initially in order to continue benefiting from the centuries-old experience of government possessed by the noble class, gathering its representatives in an upper chamber (the Chamber of Magnates in Hungary, the Chamber of Lords in Prussia, etc.), and subsequently, following the North American example (1787), to allow the member states of the various federal states to participate directly in legislative work when such states were established (Switzerland in 1848, Germany in 1871, etc.). Alongside a first chamber composed of representatives elected in proportion to the population of each member state, a second chamber was established, on the basis of the principle of their juridical equality, with the same number of representatives for each of them. In the subsequent constitutions of unitary states, the bicameral system was ultimately adopted for reasons of political expediency, highlighted by recent constitutional developments, such as the possibility of making use in the second chamber of individuals excluded from entering the first, etc.

An attempt was therefore generally made to give the two assemblies different structures. But once the method of appointing the members of the second chamber for life by the head of state had disappeared (as, for example, occurred with the Italian statutory Senate), and the so-called mixed system had proved inconvenient (in which appointment, election, hereditary membership, and ex officio membership all together contributed to constituting it: for example, the Japanese House of Peers until 1945), preference was given to forming the second chamber by an electoral procedure, though differing in its modalities from that adopted for the first: for example, with regard to the number of members and the age of electors and eligible candidates, the duration of the mandate, the total or partial renewal of the assembly, the extent and nature of the electoral constituencies, etc.

At present, however, in Italy, the difference in the composition of the two assemblies appears quite limited (all the more so because the electoral laws have largely reinforced the rigid assertion of art. 57 of the Constitution that «the Senate of the Republic is elected on a regional basis»). In any event: the Chamber is more numerous than the Senate; electors for the former must be 21 years old and those elected 25, whereas for the latter the corresponding ages are raised to 25 and 40; the duration of the mandate is respectively 5 and 6 years; the electoral constituencies of the former are multi-member constituencies, and a system of proportional representation has been adopted, with the utilization of remainder votes in a single-member national list (T. U. 5 February 1948); for the latter, single-member constituencies have been established, and in order to fill the single seat immediately, 65% of the valid votes cast in the individual constituency is required, after which the remaining seats (which are ordinarily the great majority) are likewise distributed through a system of proportional representation, operating, however, only within the regional sphere (law of 6 February 1948).

As regards their respective powers, although classical bicameralism imposed complete equality between the two assemblies, in practice there often developed a significant difference in their respective weight in political life (especially when one of them was not elective, as was the case, for example, with statutory Italy); this difference was not infrequently subsequently recognized formally by law as well: v., for example, in England, the Parliament acts of 1911 and 1949 in favor of the House of Commons. In Italy, however, full equality of powers between the two assemblies was reaffirmed in 1947.

2. Structure and internal functioning of the Chambers. — The Chambers are, juridically, collegial and constitutional organs of the state, lacking a separate legal personality of their own (with the sole exception of England), but possessing complete organizational and functional independence (also extending to financial matters), and endowed with particular parliamentary prerogatives for the protection of their members (non-liability for votes and opinions expressed during sittings; the need for authorization to proceed from the respective assemblies in order to arrest them or bring them before a court; etc.).

Each Chamber regulates its internal organization through special parliamentary rules and makes use of its own staff of officials, headed by a secretary general (Clerk in the Anglo-Saxon Chambers). Each elects «Presiding Offices» (Italian Const., art. 63), composed of a president (speaker in the Anglo-Saxon Chambers) and various vice-presidents, quaestors, and secretaries. They are also often divided into numerous «parliamentary groups», corresponding for the most part to the various political parties, which assume considerable importance in the daily conduct of parliamentary life (the proportional formation of all committees elected by the assemblies; Italian Const., arts. 72 and 82; etc.).

In accordance with the prevailing opinions of the electorate, representative Chambers are required to undergo frequent renewal: legislatures (that is, the aforementioned periods of life of the assemblies) are therefore always short (today, in Italy, 6 years for the Senate and 5 for the Chamber). Furthermore, the head of state may dissolve the Chambers prematurely when he considers it appropriate (in Italy, however, under art. 88 of the Constitution, only after having heard their presidents and not during the last 6 months of his term). Sessions, on the other hand, constitute the continuous periods of parliamentary work: they are ordinary when the convocation of the assemblies is automatically fixed at specific times of the year (in Italy, under art. 62 of the Constitution, «the Chambers meet by right on the first non-holiday day of February and October»); extraordinary when the session is exceptionally convened by the head of state, by their president, or by a specified number of members (in Italy, two-thirds).

The sittings of the Chambers are normally public, and citizens may address petitions to them (v. PETIZIONE), but only in writing; their decisions are, nevertheless, valid only if the prescribed quorum of members is present (in Italy, an absolute majority); special disciplinary powers belong to the president for directing the debates, and specific procedural rules allow, among other things, the possible obstructionism of the dissenting minority to be reduced within due limits. But the orderly conduct of the Chambers’ proceedings is generally achieved even more by the conscientious observance of those rules of constitutional propriety that constitute the so-called parliamentary etiquette (so rigidly respected, for example, in the British P.).

3. Functions of the P

Whereas in contemporary monarchies the formal law is a complex act resulting from the concordant will of the king (the so-called sanction) and the Chambers, in republican governments it instead presents itself as the will of the Chambers alone. The president of the Republic has, in fact, only a suspensive veto, being able to refer back to the Chambers for a new vote the law submitted to him for promulgation (which he performs in exercising a purely executive function); but if the Chambers renew their vote (by a simple majority, under art. 74 of the Italian Constitution; by a two-thirds majority under the Constitution of the United States; etc.), the law’s entry into force cannot, as a rule, be delayed.

The examination and approval of bills (of parliamentary, governmental, popular, etc. initiative) within the individual Chambers may take place according to very different systems; but the most widespread today (Italian Constitution, art. 72) is that of the so-called legislative committees, each competent for a different subject, which carry out all the necessary preparatory work and then present the bill before the assembly together with their own report, sometimes accompanied by another from the minority. For legislative measures of lesser importance, the Italian Constitution is sometimes content with simple approval by the committee, which then meets in a deliberative capacity, thereby somewhat relieving the assembly of the increasing burden of legislative work.

Political control is exercised in itself through questions, interpellations, and parliamentary inquiries, culminating in the vote on motions which, if motions of no confidence, bring about the resignation of the competent minister or, where appropriate, of the entire Cabinet; and when such action is repeated by the Chambers with arbitrary thoughtlessness, it gives rise to a harmful and irresponsible predominance known as parliamentarism. In presidential forms of government (such as that of the United States), where ministers are politically responsible only to the president and not to Congress, it has therefore seemed necessary to assign the second chamber in detail certain specific functions of control over the conduct of the head of state (for example, the United States Senate must approve, by a two-thirds majority, treaties concluded by the president, his appointments of the highest officials, etc.).

Financial control is exercised through the vote on the budget law which, with its strict division into “chapters” of the expenditure permitted for each Ministry, thereby constitutes an unwaivable criterion for the use of public funds, and through the continuous verification of the law’s full execution, normally relying on special “control organs” placed alongside the active executive bodies (for example, in Italy, with the assistance of the Corte dei conti).

The judicial functions still attributed to the P. are now, by contrast, more limited almost everywhere. They had in fact been conferred rather broadly upon the continental European Chambers in the nineteenth century, in imitation of what occurred in England, where even today the House of Lords acts in certain cases as the supreme Court of Appeal (under the so-called procedure of impeachment, ministers are accused by the Commons and judged by the Lords in criminal matters). Subsequently, however, most of the aforementioned functions were transferred to special judicial bodies.

Thus, for example, in Italy (leaving aside authorizations to proceed granted with regard to its own members), the P. exercises functions of this nature only when, in a joint sitting of the two assemblies, it refers the president of the Republic to the judgment of the Constitutional Court by an absolute majority of its members, and the president of the Council and the ministers by a relative majority (Italian Constitution, art. 96), for offenses committed in the exercise of their functions.

Paolo Biscaretti di Ruffa