PARLIAMENT. —
I. History
The term *parlamentum* was used in the Middle Ages to denote institutions of various kinds: on the one hand, the general assemblies of the people of the Italian communes; on the other, high magistracies, as occurred in France; and finally, the “estates” general and provincial, the latter being assemblies of the three privileged orders: clergy, feudal nobility, and cities.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 linked to the Carolingian assembly and, through it, to the assembly formed by dukes, gastalds, royal vassals, and a part of the people: the *exercitus* of the Lombard kingdom. In general, however, such assemblies took shape in the 13th–14th centuries, that is, toward the end of the feudal age proper. It was membership in the privileged classes and entities 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 seem to have been constituted by the fusion of meetings that took place in large territories, duchies, or marches, for the maintenance of peace and to assist the royal envoys in the administration of justice; these meetings were composed of the *maiores terrae*, together with other meetings that the duke or marquis convened to seek the counsel of his vassals. When, in the 13th century, the dukes or marquises sought to regain, with greater vigor, control over their territories, these various provincial assemblies merged and took on a more distinct form. One of their primary aims was to defend the privileges of the estates against abuses by princes and their officials.
Thus, numerous assemblies in Europe came to be called “estates,” though this word more properly denoted the various orders from which the assembly was composed. In France, for instance, the term “estates general” was used to denote the general assembly of the kingdom. The designation “provincial estates” was introduced by historians to refer to those that met in the great provinces of the kingdom, such as Dauphiné, Savoy, Normandy, etc. Documents speak only of *états de Normandie* or *de Savoye*. The term *p.* prevailed especially in England and Italy.
The normal organization of these *p.* was based on the three “estates” already mentioned. The first of these was composed of ecclesiastics; these must already have been present in the assemblies of the Lombard kingdom and continued to take part in those of the Carolingian and later periods as high dignitaries of the kingdom, in whose hands lay, frequently, the election of the king. As for the provincial assemblies, the clergy took part by virtue of the extensive jurisdictions they enjoyed and the vast lands they possessed, as well as by reason of their eminent position in the province. The “estate” or “branch” of the clergy in the provincial assemblies was composed of bishops, cathedral chapters, abbeys, and monasteries. The former, like the abbots, attended in person; the latter sent procurators.
In the “estate” of the feudal lords or barons, as they were called in Sicily, various categories of different origins were sometimes distinguished. The essential requirement was direct dependence on the prince. Not infrequently, the right to attend did not belong to a single person but to a feudal estate, and internal rules of the house determined who should attend the *p.* on its behalf and how the turns among those entitled were to be arranged. If several persons attended, they had a single vote. As for the cities, their right to attend the assembly depended on a custom established in the early formation of the *p.*, or on a special privilege granted by the prince. Direct dependence on the prince was also a condition for the cities: in the Kingdom of Sicily, this was expressed by the quality of “demesne,” and the “demesne branch” was therefore the name given to the branch of the cities or “universities.” Cities were represented in the *p.* by their envoys, who rarely had full powers; more often, they had to report back and obtain the assent of the city council for the proposals under discussion.
The constitution of the *p.* with three “estates” is the norm; it must be observed, however, that at its origins the assembly was composed only of ecclesiastics and feudal lords; the cities were added later. In the assembly of the Kingdom of Italy, this seems to have occurred around 1130. Later, this also happened in the Sicilian *p.* and even later in the English *p.* (1265). In the 16th century, the *p.* of the Marches was reduced to an assembly of representatives of communes, since ecclesiastics and feudal lords no longer attended.
As for the manner of meeting, it is observed that in Sicily, originally, the three “estates” or “branches” met together, but later, under the influence of Spanish customs, each sat separately. In the English *p.*, the Upper House was composed of the clergy and the barons, while the other House was composed of country nobles and representatives of the communes.
As for parliamentary competence, this was defined by fixed rules only at a later stage. For a long time, in many *p.*, including the English one, a large part of the sessions was devoted to the discussion and decision of judicial matters: a competence that had been handed down to them from the more ancient assemblies, to which important trials were referred and which also decided disputes arising among their own members. Subsequently, this competence was reduced to exceptional cases, and the main subject of parliamentary debates became financial burdens. This aspect of competence was of the greatest importance for the development of the powers of the *p.*, because it took advantage of the prince’s requests to obtain, in exchange, reforms in legislation, administration, or other measures. This gave rise to the conception of the relations between the “estates” and the prince as a contractual relationship. The granting of such subsidies also enabled the “estates” to control the prince’s officials to ensure that the money granted was spent as agreed, and this opened the way to a control over public administration.
Another important function was the legislative one, which was originally a power of the general assemblies, while as regards 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 tura* without the consent of the *maiores et meliores terrae*. The *p.* then acquired a special competence for military provisions.
As for the functioning of these assemblies, there was great variety, depending on the authority that the *p.* had acquired. In territories and periods in which it had wide influence over public affairs and even affected foreign policy, as was the case with the Piedmontese *p.* in the 15th and 16th centuries and the Friulian *p.* before the fall of the patriarchal government of Aquileia, parliamentary sessions were very frequent, and the council, the permanent organ of the *p.*, met without interruption. By contrast, the Sicilian *p.* met, during the Spanish domination, on a regular basis every three years.
In no part of Europe did the parliament assume such an independent position in relation to the sovereign as it did in England after the 1688 revolution, which drove King James II from the throne. From that time onward, the English House of Commons began an evolution that led it, step by step, to become the model for all others. There is no parallel to such an evolution on the Continent. In some countries, and particularly in Germany, the "estates" confronted the prince as an equivalent power, resulting in a genuine dualism within the principality. This did not occur in the Italian parliaments, which instead progressively declined in the 16th–18th centuries due to the absolutist aims of princes who viewed these bodies with suspicion, especially because they limited their power in the financial sphere. The same tendencies led the kings of France not to convene the Estates General from 1614 onward until the revolutionary wave of 1789 forced them to do so again. By the end of the 18th century, Italy still had: the Sicilian Parliament, the "estates" or estates of Sardinia, the Parliament of the Marches, and that of Friuli. All had been reduced to mere shadows and represented a society dominated by privilege that was soon to disappear. On the other hand, when the sovereigns, stripped of their states by Napoleon, managed to recover them, they had no desire to restore those old parliaments, preferring to give full rein to absolutism.
The only parliament that had a brief but interesting history during 1812–15 was the Sicilian one. It was reorganized in 1812, modeled on the English Parliament, and thus a House of Peers and a House of Commons were created. The experiment failed, however, due to the inexperience of the parliamentarians, the difficulty of transplanting foreign institutions into Sicilian soil, and above all the hostility of Ferdinand III, who dissolved the Parliament on 14 May 1815 and never reconvened II.
II. IN MODERN STATES
Parliament is the name generally given to legislative assemblies (cf. Italian Constitution, Part II, Title I), which are mostly elected by all citizens possessing the right to vote.In bicameral states, the term is often used to refer only to the elective chamber when the other is not elective; in England, however, it has a broader and more specific meaning, embracing all three legislative organs (namely: the Crown, the Houses of Lords and Commons); in the United States and in Latin American states, legislative assemblies are usually collectively designated as Congress.
1. Bicameralism
In the vast majority of contemporary states, parliament is bicameral, consisting of 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 a few small states (Luxembourg, Monaco, San Marino, etc.), only Turkey, Spain, and the European satellite states of the USSR have unicameral parliaments.Bicameralism arose in an entirely empirical way in England in the first half of the 14th century, when the original single parliament split into two distinct colleges: one comprising the high feudal lords, the two ecclesiastical estates (the so-called temporal and spiritual lords, summoned individually), and the other the representatives of boroughs and counties (burgesses and knights), designated by their respective communities. During the 19th century, however, almost all European constitutions adopted it deliberately, first to perpetuate the governing experience of the nobility by gathering its members in a chamber (e.g., the Chamber of Magnates in Hungary, the Chamber of Lords in Prussia, etc.), and later, following the North American example (1787), to allow the member-states of various federal states to participate directly in legislative work when they were formed (Switzerland 1848, Germany 1871, etc.), placing beside a first chamber composed of representatives elected proportionally to the population of each member-state a second chamber formed on the principle of the legal equality of the states, with the same number of representatives for each. In subsequent constitutions of unitary states, the bicameral system was adopted for reasons of political expediency highlighted by recent constitutional events, such as the possibility of having in the second chamber elements excluded from the first, and so on.
Attempts were therefore generally made to give the two assemblies different structures. However, with the disappearance of the method of life-long appointment of members of the second chamber by the head of state (as was the case, for example, with the Italian statutory Senate), and the showing of the so-called mixed system to be inconvenient (in which appointment, election, heredity, and ex officio membership all contributed to its formation: e.g., the Japanese House of Peers until 1945), it was preferred to form the second chamber through an elective process, albeit with modalities different from those used for the first: for example, in the number of members and the age of voters and those eligible, the duration of the mandate, whether renewal was total or partial, the size and nature of the electoral districts, etc.
Nevertheless, in Italy today the difference in composition between the two assemblies appears quite limited (all the more so since electoral laws have largely emptied the rigid assertion of Article 57 of the Constitution that “the Senate of the Republic is elected on a regional basis”). In any case: the Chamber is larger than the Senate; voters for the former must be 21 years old and those elected 25, whereas for the latter the corresponding ages are 25 and 40; the term of office is five and six years respectively; the electoral districts for the first are multi-member and a system of proportional representation with the use of remainders in a single national list has been adopted (T.U. 5 Feb. 1948), while for the second single-member districts have been set up and to win the single seat outright a candidate must obtain 65% of the valid votes cast in the individual district; the remaining seats (which are usually the great majority) are distributed by a system of proportional representation operating, however, only within the regional framework (Law of 6 Feb. 1948).
As for their reciprocal powers, while classical bicameralism imposed full parity between the two assemblies, in practice (especially if one of them was not elective, as was the case, for example, with the Italian statutory parliament) a marked difference often emerged in their contribution to political life (a difference that was not infrequently formally recognized even by law: v., for example, in England, the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 in favor of the House of Commons). In Italy, however, in 1947 full parity of powers between the two assemblies was reaffirmed.
2. Structure and Internal Operation of the Chambers
Legally, the Chambers are collegial and constitutional organs of the State, lacking distinct legal personality (with the sole exception of England), but enjoying full organizational and functional independence (extending even to financial matters) and endowed with special parliamentary prerogatives to protect their members (irresponsibility for votes and opinions expressed during sittings; the need for authorization from the respective assemblies to proceed with their arrest and prosecution; etc.).
Each Chamber regulates its own internal organization through specific parliamentary regulations and employs its own staff, headed by a Secretary-General (Clerk in Anglo-Saxon Chambers). Each elects a "Presidium" (Italian Const., art. 63), consisting of a President (Speaker in 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 different political parties, which assume considerable importance in the daily conduct of parliamentary life (formation on a proportional basis of all commissions elected by the assemblies; Italian Const., arts. 72 and 82; etc.).
In keeping with dominant opinions in the electorate, representative Chambers require frequent renewal: legislatures (i.e., the aforementioned periods of assembly life) are therefore always short (in Italy, 6 years for the Senate and 5 for the Chamber). Moreover, the Head of State may dissolve the Chambers in advance when deemed appropriate (in Italy, however, under art. 88 of the Constitution, only after consulting their Presidents and not during the last six months of his term). Sessions, on the other hand, constitute continuous periods of parliamentary work: they are ordinary when the convocation of the assemblies is automatically set at certain times of the year (in Italy, under art. 62 of the Constitution, "the Chambers shall convene by right on the first non-holiday of February and October"); extraordinary when the session is called exceptionally by the Head of State, or 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. PETITION), but only in writing; their deliberations, however, are valid only if the prescribed quorum is present (in Italy, an absolute majority). Special disciplinary powers are vested in the President to direct discussions, and specific regulatory provisions allow, among other things, the containment of any obstruction, though part of the dissenting minority. The regular conduct of the Chambers' work is generally ensured, however, less by legal norms than by the conscientious observance of those rules of constitutional propriety that constitute the so-called parliamentary etiquette (so rigidly observed, for example, in the British Parliament).
3. Functions of the Parliament
These are of a legislative nature; but Parliament is usually entrusted with other functions of an executive nature, and sometimes even judicial ones (v. POTERI PUBBLICI).
While in contemporary monarchies, formal law is a complex act resulting from the concordant will of the King (the so-called royal assent) and the Chambers, in republican governments, it appears as the will of the Chambers alone. The President of the Republic, in fact, has only a suspensive veto, being able to return a bill to the Chambers for a new vote (which he promulgates by exercising a purely executive function); but if the Chambers renew their vote (by simple majority, under art. 74 of the Italian Const.; by a two-thirds majority under the North American Const.; etc.), the entry into force of the law cannot, as a rule, be delayed.
The examination and approval of bills (of parliamentary, governmental, or popular initiative, etc.) within the individual Chambers can follow very different systems; but the most widespread (Italian Const., art. 72) is that of the so-called legislative commissions, each competent for a different subject matter, which carry out all necessary preparatory work and then present the bill to the assembly with their own report, sometimes accompanied by a minority report. For legislative measures of lesser importance, the Italian Constitution sometimes accepts simple approval by the Commission, meeting in a deliberative capacity, to lighten the assembly's growing legislative workload.
Political control is exercised through questions, interpellations, and parliamentary inquiries, culminating in motions whose vote, if a motion of no confidence, leads to the resignation of the competent minister or (as the case may be) of the entire Cabinet; and when such a gesture is repeated with reckless arbitrariness by the Chambers, it gives rise to harmful and irresponsible overreach known as parliamentarism. In presidential systems of government (such as that of the United States), where ministers are politically responsible only to the President and not to Congress, it has seemed necessary to entrust the second Chamber with specific functions of control over the Head of State's actions (e.g., the North American Senate must approve, by a two-thirds majority, treaties concluded by the President and appointments made by him to the highest offices, etc.).
Financial control is exercised through the vote on the budget law, which, with its rigid division into "chapters" of permitted expenditure for each Ministry, constitutes an unalterable criterion for the use of public funds, and through continuous verification of the law's full execution, relying, as a rule, on special "control bodies" alongside the active executive ones (e.g., in Italy, availing itself of the Court of Auditors).
The functions of a judicial nature still attributed to Parliament are now, however, almost everywhere more limited. In the 19th century, they had indeed been widely conferred on the continental European Chambers, in imitation of what occurred in England, where the House of Lords still functions, in certain cases, as a supreme court of appeal (under the so-called impeachment procedure, ministers are accused by the Commons and tried by the Lords in criminal matters). Subsequently, however, most of these functions were transferred to special judicial bodies.
Thus, for example, in Italy (excluding the authorization to proceed against its own members), Parliament exercises such functions only when, in joint session of the two assemblies, it refers to the Constitutional Court, by an absolute majority of its members, the President of the Republic, and by a relative majority, the Prime Minister and ministers (Italian Const., art. 96) for crimes committed in the exercise of their functions.
Paolo Biscaretti di Ruffia