Venice Commission - Report on Bicameralism

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15.Please provide any other relevant observation on the bicameral system of the country.

Austria

A complete abolition of the Federal Council would be considered as a total revision of the Federal Constitution (republican principle), which must be submitted to a referendum by the federal people (Art. 44 para. 3 B-VG).

Ireland

No.

Italy

In recent times the bicameral system is becoming very problematic and in fact in the praxis it operates as a "alternate monocameralism”: decisions are taken in one chamber – either Senate or Chamber of deputies – whereas the other one merely confirms the decision taken by the first one.

Kazakhstan

The Mazhilis, by a majority vote of the total number of deputies of the Mazhilis, on the initiative of at least one fifth of the total number of deputies of the Mazhilis, has the right to express a vote of no confidence in the Government.

Mexico

The Political Constitution of the United Mexican States foresees a Permanent Commission, which embodies the Congress of the Union during the period of recess of the sessions. The referred body is composed by 37 members: 19 federal Deputies and 18 Senators, appointed by their respective chamber in the eve of the closure of the ordinary period of sessions.
The most relevant powers of the Permanent Commissions are:
-Perform some of the appointments done by the Senate, with a relevant exception in the case of Justices of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, where there is no constitutional provision that provides that the appointment could be done by the Permanent Commission;
-Call for extraordinary sessions of the chambers;
-Approve the leave for up to sixty natural days to the President of the Republic.

The Netherlands

Apart from legal competences (right of initiative and right of amendment) the House of Representatives has a political primacy, for several reasons: the House is elected directly, the Senate indirectly (through the provinces); the Members of the House are fulltime politicians, the Members of the Senate are parttime politicians, spending most of their working time in other functions; and – very relevant – the Government/Cabinet is formed in relation to the House of Representatives. As a consequence, the rule of confidence applies more strongly to the House of Representatives.

Spain

1) Decentralisation in Spain cannot be understood if we do not take into account some relevant singularities that may explain the asymmetry of decentralisation in Spain:
(i) The Constitution does not provide a full regulation of the Spanish form of decentralisation. It only provides for some basic rules on the process of access to autonomous self-government, the competences that can be assumed by the Autonomous Communities, the legal means to control the exercise of their competences and some basic rules on the form of regional government. Thus, the final legal status of decentralisation is the result of agreements between political parties at both national and regional level (codified in the basic autonomous laws - Statutes of Autonomy -) and, above all, of the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court.
(ii) There are important nationalist parties in some Autonomous Communities (Catalonia, the Basque Country and, to a lesser extent, Galicia) due mainly to the important cultural and socio-economic singularities of those territories. In the cases of Catalonia and the Basque Country, these parties have obtained a majority in most of the regional elections. These parties, especially recently, have increased their demands to become independent states. In Catalonia, these demands have provoked the most important constitutional crisis since 1978.
(iii) The territorial "map" in Spain is quite heterogeneous in terms of the historical, linguistic, cultural, legal, size and population of the Autonomous Communities. It is difficult to compare Catalonia (more than 9 million inhabitants, with strong nationalist parties, a specific foral civil law and great historical, cultural and linguistic differences) with La Rioja (about 300,000 inhabitants and no singularity compared to the rest of Spain)
(iv) Even the powers assumed by the Autonomous Communities are not the same, particularly in the “foral” territories. Thus, the Basque Country and Navarre enjoy a specific and privileged financial foral regime, and in Catalonia an autonomous foral civil code is fully in force.
Asymmetry may explain to a certain extent the difficulty of the Senate to represent territorial interests when territories are so unequal among them.

2) The Senate is defined in Art. 69 of the Constitution as a "Chamber of territorial representation". But as designed in the Constitution, the Senate represents the "provinces" (an administrative entity without legislative or politically relevant competences) not the decentralised political entities (Autonomous Communities). Moreover, representing the provinces regardless of their population creates an over-representation of rural areas of Spain to the detriment of urban areas. This imbalance is also problematic from a democratic point of view. These shortcomings in the system's representativeness are not compensated for by the election of senators by regional parliaments, as they represent only 25% of the total number of senators in the chamber

3) The Senate's inability to represent territorial interests has led it to become a "second reading" chamber that replicates the debates of the lower house. Its representative imbalance, subordination to the lower house and lack of powers to express its distrust of the government have undermined its potential political importance in the system. It has remained only a chamber that can, on occasion, technically improve on legislative bills passed in the lower house. Hence, it has little legitimacy and importance in the eyes of the public

United Kingdom

Generally members of the House of Lords spend a lot of their time considering draft government bills before they become law. However, any proposed amendments to legislation must also be agreed by the Commons. Its primary function is therefore as a ‘revising’ chamber, asking the Commons to reconsider its plans.
Through the work of parliamentary select committees, peers investigate public policy covering a wide range of public policy, from justice and home affairs, to the long-term sustainability of the NHS. Committees produce reports which can often directly or indirectly influence the formulation of government policy.
Holding the government to account is another function of the Lords. During question time and debates in the chamber members put questions to government ministers who must respond.
It is very rare for peers to try to overrule legislation passed by the House of Commons as a whole. Under the Salisbury Convention the House of Lords does not try to block bills that were promised in the governing party’s manifesto, and rarely blocks any bill in its entirety. In general, the unelected House of Lords defers to the Commons’ democratic mandate, but makes proposals for MPs to think again.