B- Contents of the Rules of procedure
The rules of procedure of each Parliament organize
parliamentary and fixed work rules of procedures. It is by him that the
Parliament has car-to organize itself. It is permanent and binds the Room as a
long time as it was not amended (1). It determines not only the bodies of the
Parliament by specifying their competences but also rules relating to the
legislative procedures.
a) Rules on the organization interns
Parliament
1. Bodies of the Parliament
The bodies of the Parliament are presented by the payment.
They are regarded as a distribution of being able deputy for the good walk of
the parliamentary institution. One generally distinguishes: the Office of the
Parliament, Commissions, Groups political and parliamentary Personnel.
1.1 The Office of the parliamentary Parliament
The Office is the authority which ensures the direction of the
debates of the Parliament and her general administration.
1o) Election of the Office
The Office is elected at the beginning of each legislature for
one given duration. Its members are elected in the majority of the vote
cast.
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1. TURPIN, Domenica: Constitutional law, Paris, coll
First cycle, PUF, 3rd ED, 1997, p 345
2o) Composition of the Office
The Office of the parliamentary Parliament is generally
composed of:
- a president
- vice-presidents
- secretaries
- one or several questeurs
3o) Roles and functions of the members of the Office
- The president of the parliamentary Parliament is the highest
authority which joins together in its person the capacities, functions and
dignities of the Room. He represents the Parliament near the executive power
and other national and international institutions. It is him which directs the
meetings of the Parliament and assumes the administrative responsibility for
its services. The president is the spokesman of the room. He is the
guaranteeing one of the order and the decorum and decides questions of
payment.
- The vice-president assists the president in the performance
of his duties. In the event of prevention of the president or with his
request, the vice-president replaces it.
- The secretaries of the office are the first advisers of the
president and the members of Parliament on any question referring to the
procedure and the administration. They are in charge to draw up the reports of
the deliberations and deal with the behavior of the votes.
- The questeur is in charge of the management of the financial
and administrative services of the room under the high supervision or direction
of the Office.
1.2. Parliamentary Commitees
In general, the management of parliamentary work during a
legislature is organized in committee. The detailed study of, certain the
question bills of law and order and meticulous examination of the policies and
program of government are the work of these commissions. The statute of those
is expressly defined in the rules of procedure. There are different types of
commissions such as : permanent, mixed, special, etc
1o) Standing committees
They are created for the duration of the legislature in order
to examine the questions relating to the ministerial activities. They to this
end convene the holder of the aforesaid organizations on all questions coming
under their responsibilities. They share the preparation of the legislative
work. The report/ratio presented by a standing committee following a
convocation can lead to the interpellation of the holder in question to the
Room and a motion of censure.
2o) Special subcommittee
The special subcommittees are working groups consisted the
Parliament to make studies on specific subjects. Each special subcommittee is
created under the terms of a motion of the Parliament which defines her
duration and her mandate. However, it can request additional capacities by the
means of a report/ratio to the Parliament.
3o) Joint Committees
The Joint Committees are composed representatives of the two
Rooms: Deputies and Senators. They are also known under the name of bicameral
commissions. They are made up when there is disagreement between the Assemblies
on the vote of a law or a question of public interest. They support the fast
decision-making when there is celerity.
1.3. Parliamentary Groups
The parliamentary group is the meeting of the elected
officials belonging to the same party or the same political tendency. It
represents the body of the party in the Parliament. Its importance is
especially noticed through the conference of the presidents which is the second
body of the Parliament (1).
1.4. Parliamentary Personnel
The room remains and remains in all the countries an
institution. As such, it does not include/understand only elected officials.
There is a personnel with his service. The office prescribes by rules the
organization and the operation of the personnel. It establishes its statute and
the relationship between the administration of the Parliament and the
professional bodies of the parliamentary personnel.
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1. GICQUEL, J: quoted COp, p 866
The parliamentary personnel is composed of employees and
technical experts. The latter are the contractual ones which bring their
supports in the preparation of the private bills and in the study of the
projects sent by the Executive. They give consultations to the members of
Parliament like at the parliamentary commitees on economic questions, legal,
sociopolitic, and others...
2. The parliamentary Discipline
The rules of procedure of each Parliament define a certain
number of codes of conduct of the member of Parliament with regard to his
person and her behavior in work of the Parliament. They treat the points of
laws and obligations of its members.
2.1 The parliamentary Statute
The hurdy-gurdies and the oldest traditions confer on the
Parliament and its members a privileged statute which enables them to exert
their constitutional functions in all independence and all quietude, safe from
all pressures except those which the constitution organizes :
1o) Irresponsibility of the member of Parliament
The member of Parliament is safe from all continuations for
the acts achieved in the exercise of his mandate. He is thus free to give his
opinion during debates. He cannot be continued in slandering starting from the
charges which he emitted with the platform (1).
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1. DUVERGER, M: quoted COp, p 154
2o) Parliamentary privilege
The member of Parliament is inviolable during the exercise of
his mandate. He can neither be stopped, neither held, nor even continued for
the penal infringements which he would have made, except in the case of the
obvious offense. The Office is the only authority being able to authorize the
arrest of a member of Parliament after a serious examination of the character
of the continuation provided that a request for lifting of immunity were
required and voted by the Parliament.
2.2. Meetings
The Parliament votes the law in the public meetings. The rules
of procedure fix the schedule of the meetings. The president of the assembly
directs the meetings while applying and by interpreting the use and the
traditions of the room.
2.3. Quorum
There cannot be meetings without the quorum required by rules
of procedure N `noting. The quorum is the minimum of presences which the
payment requires so that L `assembled can exert its powers.
2.4. Sanctions
Disciplinary measurements are pronounced by the president of
the Parliament. They can be a call to order with inscription with the official
report, which deprives the member of Parliament during a certain time part of
its allowance; or a deferment which is pronounced by the assembly prohibiting
the member of Parliament to take share with the meetings and the debates.
b) Rules on the procedure
As regards legislative work, the adoption of the rules of
procedure establishes an adequate framework in the orientation of the
presentation and the adoption of the law like in the relationship between the
Legislature and the Executive.
1. Presentation of the law
The legislative power is exerted exclusively by the
parliamentary assembly. It is constitutional organization which it obtains this
competence that the payment comes to restore in precise standards so that the
law can take effect.
2. The initiative of the law
In general, the initiative of the laws belongs to the two
capacities: Executive and Legislature. Square of Malberg wrote: The
initiative of the law is not by it only an act of legislative power, it is an
essential operation of the legislative procedure which can only open only by
it, it is not an act of legislative decision; it is only one preliminary
condition with the formation of the law and not an integral part of its
adoption.
Even if if various authorities can be called to intervene in
the initiative of the laws, it rests only with the Room to give rise to the
law.
3. The examination of the law
Any bill or private bill is examined before its inscription
with L `agenda for its adoption. This examination is made by a commission
unicamérale or bicameral Parliament. The constitution determines the
priority of each Parliament and their competence in the examination and the
vote of the law.
4. The debate and adoption of the law
The rules of procedure of the Parliament establish the
discipline of the debates. According to a certain order, the president of the
assembly directs the debates and ensures the police force of meeting. When the
Parliament is sufficiently built, it puts an end to the discussion and passes
to the vote.
The vote expresses the decision of the Parliament. It is taken
in the majority of the voices. The vote takes place according to the
indications of the rules of procedure. These indications are of five types:
- The vote by show of hands
- The vote by sat and raised
- The ordinary open vote
- The vote with secret bulletin
- The poll with the platform
The rules of procedure constitute a framework of orientation
and simplification of parliamentary work. They bring precise details on all
that can cause conflict in the legislative procedures and the internal
organization of the institution.
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