Venice Commission - Report on Bicameralism
www.venice.coe.int
Disclaimer: this information was gathered by the Secretariat of the Venice Commission on the basis of contributions by the members of the Venice Commission, and complemented with information available from various open sources (academic articles, legal blogs, official information web-sites etc.).
Every effort was made to provide accurate and up-to-date information. For further details please visit our site : https://www.venice.coe.int/
10.Congruence. Is it common for the second chamber to have a similar party composition (majority-minority) to that of the lower chamber?
Not similar because the President can choose a third on the members of the Council of Nation.
Yes, in Austria it is common for the Federal Council to have a similar party composition to that of the National Council. Since 1945 (Second Republic) there were only a few legislative periods in which the majority of the Federal Council (temporarily) differed from the governing coalition parties in the National Council (1966-1970, 1975-1979, 1979-1983, 1983-1986, 2002-2006, 2019-2020). At the moment the majority in the Federal Council (31 members belong to the Austrian Peoples´s Party and the Green Party in total) again coincides with the majority in the National Council (97 members belong to the Austrian Peoples´s Party and the Green Party in total).
Le Sénat ne joue pas de rôle dans le système parlementaire. Le gouvernement doit seulement être soutenu par une majorité à la Chambre des Représentants, non au Sénat. De ce faite, formellement, il n’existe pas de majorité gouvernementale au Sénat.
Yes, it is common for the House of Peoples to have a similar party composition to the House of Representatives.
Yes
Prior to 2016, the Senate was organized along party lines and it was fairly common for the government of the day to have a majority of members in both the House of Commons (the elected, lower house) and the Senate (the appointed, upper house). However, there were times when tensions would result from a government having won a majority of seats in the Commons but not having been in office for some time prior, and thus not having appointed a majority of the Senators then sitting. This occurred, for example, when the Conservative government was elected in 1984. Since 2016, with a new, more independent appointments policy in place, a broad majority of Senators now have no party affiliation.
While the members of both chambers commonly have the same political affiliation, the majority-minority settings is different in recent years. Take an example of the elections to a lower chamber in 2017 which resulted in a majority of the political movement ANO (29,64%). However, the elections to the Senate resulted badly for the movement ANO as it received only 3 seats in 2016, 1 seat in 2018 and 2 seats in 2020. This is due to the different system of elections to the two chambers, the periodic replacement of the Senate by a third every two years, and finally the low voter turnout in the Senate elections, or the varying level of participation of supporters of certain political parties (more simply, voters of systemic right-wing parties are more disciplined in the Senate elections).
Depending on the period, the political majorities in the two chambers have been similar (1958-1981, 1986-1988, 1993-1997, 2002-2014) or divergent (1981-1986, 1988-1993, 1997-2002, 2014-2023).
The Bundesrat has the function of forming a counterweight to the Bundestag and to participate in the adoption of laws touching upon the interests of the Länder. Examples include the reduction of financial means to the Länder or regulations on the implementation of the laws which falls into the competence of the Länder. Due to the constant changing composition of the Bundesrat, as a rule, the party composition (majority-minority) differs in the Bundestag and in the Bundesrat.
In theory, Seanad Éireann does not recognise political party membership, this is reflected by the fact that political party names do not appear on ballot papers in Seanad elections. In practice, however, the make-up of the Seanad generally reflects the strength of the parties of Dáil Éireann. This is due to the fact that the people who elect the Seanad members are made up of Members of the incoming Dáil, the outgoing Seanad, and County and City Councils. In practice, the Seanad also has an in-built government majority due to the 11 nominations that come from the Taoiseach.
10. The composition of the two chambers is the same. One is the mirror of the other on a smaller scale, except for minor differences.
No
Data shows that since 1997, year when the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) lost for the first time the absolute majority in both chambers, there is a common trend of similar composition, regarding to the majority, in the Chamber of the Deputies and the Senate. Except, 2009-2012, because PRI had the majority in the Chamber of Deputies, while the National Action Party (PAN) had it in the Senate, nevertheless, it must be noted that the term of office of federal Deputies is of 3 years, while the Senators have a term of office of 6 years, consequently in 2009, Senators were not elected, while federal Deputies were. http://sil.gobernacion.gob.mx/portal/Numeralia/integracionCongreso
Oui et c’est le cas actuellement, une majorité de soutien au Gouvernement.
Until some 10 years ago the majority in the House of Representatives also had the majority in the Senate, but nowadays that is seldom so
This happens, although it is not the norm, e.g. in the 2011-2015 and 2015-2019 terms, the party that had a majority in the Sejm also had a majority in the Senate, while in the current term the opposition parties have a majority in the Senate.
It is quite common for the second chamber to have a similar political composition as that of the lower chamber (as the rules for the election of the chambers are basically the same).
The composition of the National Council of the Republic of Slovenia is incongruent. In Slovenia, the two houses of the parliament are different, not only in the way they are formed, powers, mandate and professional performance of their members, but also in their composition. The National Assembly represents all citizens of the Republic of Slovenia, local and various functional interests are represented in the National Council. Local and functional interests face each other in the National Council in an institutionalized way. Its composition is supposed to neutralize the excessive influence of political parties, which mainly participate in the legislative process in the National Assembly. Many associations and organizations of civil society, which are independent of politics, participate in the elections to the National Council. Depending on the number of members, they can nominate electors and candidates and in this way ensure their member's representation in the National Council. Since political parties do not have a direct influence on their election, they cannot influence their performance during the mandate of the National Council, which is significantly reflected in the work of the National Council. Compared to the sessions of the National Assembly, the sessions of the National Council are therefore less politically coloured, and the debates are more substantive, which significantly affects the quality of the functioning of the parliament in Slovenia.
Yes. It is the usual situation. Usually, the governing majority in the lower chamber is composed (alone or in coalition with some minor parties) by the party which has won more seats. Because the electoral system for the Senate is majoritarian (while the system for the lower house is proportional), the party that wins the elections in the lower house almost always obtains an even larger majority in the Senate. Therefore, it is usual for the Senate to reproduce the majorities of the lower house but with an even greater weight of the majority supporting the government. However, a different majority has occurred in two legislatures when there have been governing coalitions that included many small parties (a situation that lasted only two years) or when the majority in the lower house had little presence in the least populated provinces (this happened only once).
The composition of Tunisia's second chamber is presently in progress following the adoption of a new constitution. Consequently, there is currently no available information regarding whether the party composition in the second chamber is similar to that of the lower chamber.
The House of Lords typically represents the three main political parties as well as smaller parties but – by virtue of the life time appointment system - not in precise proportion to their representation in the House of Commons. For example at present the Conservatives have 261 Members of the House of Lords and the Labour Party 175 Members and the Liberal Democrats 83 (out of a total of 755) whereas in the House of Commons the Conservatives have 354 MPs, Labour 196 and the Liberal Democrats only 14 (out of a total of 650).
It is not uncommon for the same party to control both the Senate and House majority. Since 1857, the government has been unified 48 times, 23 under Democratic control and 25 under Republican control.[1] https://history.house.gov/Institution/Presidents-Coinciding/Party-Government/
Algeria
Austria
Belgium
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Brazil
Canada
Amongst the merit-based criteria established by the Government and applied by the Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments, it is stated:
“Individuals must demonstrate to the Advisory Board that they have the ability to bring a perspective and contribution to the work of the Senate that is independent and non-partisan. They will also have to disclose any political involvement and activities. Past political activities would not disqualify an applicant.”
Czechia
France
Germany
For instance, during the coalition of the Social Democrats and the Liberal Democrats from 1969 to 1982, the Bundesrat consisted of a majority of Christian Democrats. They tried to block the laws the Social Democrats had voted for with their majority in the Bundestag. At that time, there were only three relevant political parties. In the last years, the political party landscape has been changing so that there is a variety of coalitions between different political parties, both on the level of the Länder and on the federal level. The coalition governments in the Länder can often not agree on how to vote in the Bundesrat. Since the representatives of one Land in the Bundesrat must vote en bloc for the Land, the coalition governments often agree to abstain in controversial questions. As the Bundesrat has to decide with the majority of all votes (currently 35 votes) according to Article 52 Section 3 Sentence 1 Basic Law an abstention counts as a negative vote. But still, laws are often blocked in the Bundesrat.
As only the Goverments of the Länder are represented in the Bundesrat and the Bundesrat does not mirror the composition of the parliaments of the Länder, those parties not involved in any government of the Länder are completely excluded from the work in the Bundesrat whereas they are represented in the Bundestag.
This results in a different party composition of the two bodies. While the right-wing party “AFD” for example has got 78 seats (10.6%) in the Bundestag, it is not represented in the Bundesrat at all.
Ireland
Italy
Kazakhstan
Mexico
Morocco
The Netherlands
Poland
Romania
Slovenia
However, it turned out in practice that political parties cannot be avoided even in the National Council. It is true that the legislation does not define any formal role for political parties in the election process of the National Council (nomination of candidates, members of electoral committees, etc.), but electors and candidates for members of the National Council are also elected by representative bodies of local communities, i.e. municipal councils. Given that political parties play an important role in municipal council elections and are thus still involved in the work of representative bodies of local communities, political parties also play an informally strong role in the elections of electors and candidates for members of the National Council. Namely, they determine electors and candidates for members of the National Council in all 22 constituencies for elections to the National Council. In practice, therefore, a majority of members of the National Council representing local interests are members of political parties.
Spain
Switzerland
There are no majorities / minorities in the Swiss multi-party parliamentary system.
Members of the National Council are generally elected according to the system of proportionate representation. On the other hand, the members of the Council of States in all Cantons except two (Canton of Jura, Canton of Neuchâtel) are elected according to the majority principle.
As a result, the party-political composition of the Council of States differs significantly from that of the National Council.
Tunisia
United Kingdom
United States of America