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Internal Organisation of Parliament and Role of the Opposition

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Abstract

This chapter summarizes current constitutional design regarding the internal organisation of Parliament and the role of the opposition. It is based on the review of national constitutions and seeks to establish a common ground for writing and amending constitutions. It evaluates the election, composition, and roles of the Speaker, the Praesidium, the Committees and Factions. Further it discussed how the five main principles of oppositional rights can best be manifested in a constitution such as the requirements for qualified majority for bills or the appointment of senior office holders inside and outside of Government. This chapter forms part of Vol. I of Writing Constitutions.

An introductory video can be found on www.writingconstitutions.com and on https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94602-9_1.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    De Vergottini (2019), p. 574.

  2. 2.

    Weber (2019), p. 115.

  3. 3.

    Venice Commission (2010), p. 7.

  4. 4.

    Weber (2010), p. 181.

  5. 5.

    Byrd (1995), p. 15.

  6. 6.

    Van Caenegem (1995), p. 82.

  7. 7.

    Factsheet (2010), p. 2.

  8. 8.

    Factsheet (2010), p. 2.

  9. 9.

    Heringa (2016), p. 19.

  10. 10.

    Ziemer (2009), p. 181.

  11. 11.

    Luchterhandt (2002), p. 181.

  12. 12.

    See Babeck (2012), p. 66 with respect to the dilemma of political discussion in the Republic of Georgia.

  13. 13.

    Heringa (2016), p. 177.

  14. 14.

    Weber (2019), pp. 113, 114.

  15. 15.

    Whilst some degree of confidential decision-making behind closed doors in committees is generally accepted, see Waldhoff (2021), p. 693 with further references.

  16. 16.

    Ibid.

  17. 17.

    De Vergottini (2019), p. 591 also assigns an additional advisory function to Parliament.

  18. 18.

    Demmler (1994), p. 463.

  19. 19.

    Merriam-Webster (2019).

  20. 20.

    Luchterhandt (2002), p. 181.

  21. 21.

    Spanish Constitution, art. 72, sec. 2.

  22. 22.

    Weber (2019), p. 115.

  23. 23.

    Luchterhandt (2002), p. 181.

  24. 24.

    BVerfGE 1, 115/116; 56, 396/405; 80, 188/227.

  25. 25.

    Weber (2010), p. 248; Ziemer (2002), p. 181; Achterberg/Schulte in v. Mangoldt, Klein and Starck and Schulte (2010), Art. 40 par. 7.

  26. 26.

    Luchterhandt (2002), p. 181.

  27. 27.

    Weber (2019), p. 115.

  28. 28.

    Jarass and Pieroth (2018), p. 706.

  29. 29.

    Weber (2010), p. 249.

  30. 30.

    Spanish Constitution, art. 72, Sec. 2.

  31. 31.

    For the equivalent German practice see Sodan (2015), p. 393.

  32. 32.

    Merriam-Webster (2019).

  33. 33.

    Reinhard (2002), p. 221.

  34. 34.

    Weber (2019), pp. 115, 116.

  35. 35.

    E.g. the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Australia between 2013 and 2017 which interviewed more than 8,000 victims in private sessions, held 444 public hearings and had a budget of about A$370 million.

  36. 36.

    Weber (2019), pp. 115, 116.

  37. 37.

    Weber (2019), p. 116.

  38. 38.

    Venice Commission (2008), p. 13.

  39. 39.

    Weber (2019), p. 93.

  40. 40.

    BVerfGE 80, 188/222; 84, 304/323; 106 253/262.

  41. 41.

    Venice Commission (2008), p. 15.

  42. 42.

    e.g. Peucker (2009), par. 116. For the role of the budget committee see Sect. 16.1 of Writing Constitutions.

  43. 43.

    E.g. art. 39.5 French Constitution.

  44. 44.

    Please see Chap. 5 for details. Also Demmler (1994), p. 465ss.

  45. 45.

    For more details on factions, please see Demmler (1994), pp. 184, 185, 339, 394., 465, 475 and 484.

  46. 46.

    With reference to the seating in the Westminister system, Kersten (2021), p. 741.

  47. 47.

    Venice Commission (2019), p. 6; Not covered by the definition in this chapter are opposition movements outside of Parliament, such as the pro-democracy movement in Hongkong, 10,000 participants of which where temporarily detained in 2019. However often, leading figures, such as Joshua Wong, then also become party leaders or election candidates.

  48. 48.

    https://www.britannica.com/topic/authoritarianism. last accessed 30 July 2021. Also see Sect. 7.1.1.5 of Writing Constitutions with respect to treatment of candidates of the opposition before and during elections.

  49. 49.

    For more details see Blokker (2019), p. 544.

  50. 50.

    Following the recommendations of the Venice Commission (2016), par. 21, which enumerates five principles.

  51. 51.

    Häberle and Kotzur (2016), par. 848. For examples of systematic silencing and delegitimization of the opposition in Poland and Hungary, see Sadurski (2019), pp. 132 ff.

  52. 52.

    Venice Commission (2016), par. 22.

  53. 53.

    Ely (1980), p. 105.

  54. 54.

    Venice Commission (2016), par. 26.

  55. 55.

    Häberle and Kotzur (2016), par. 1093.

  56. 56.

    Venice Commission (2016), par. 23.

  57. 57.

    That of course pre-empts that a pluralistic party system prevails, which is often not the case in socialistic countries or in countries with the dominance of a single political party such as in India, Japan, Malaysia, see Dixon and Ginsburg (2014), p. 5, different to Uganda under Musevini, which had enshrined a no-party system for many years.

  58. 58.

    Venice Commission (2016), par. 24.

  59. 59.

    Venice Commission (2016), par. 27.

  60. 60.

    Interestingly, Cheibub and Limongi (2014), p. 153. even see a link to an increased cause for impeachments in presidential democracies in Asia such as South Korea, the Philippines and Indonesia when there are low incentives to form alliances.

  61. 61.

    Venice Commission (2016), par. 25.

  62. 62.

    Venice Commission (2016), par. 31, or even defining the term opposition, Cancik (2000), pp. 1ff.

  63. 63.

    Peucker (2009), par. 120; De Vergottini (2019), p. 570.

  64. 64.

    BVerfGE 80, 188, 238.

  65. 65.

    For further details, see Chap. 2.

  66. 66.

    See, Chap. 2 for more details, also Bradley and Pinelli (2012), pp. 661–662.

  67. 67.

    Weber (2010), par. 179.

  68. 68.

    Venice Commission (2016), par. 40; see Chap. 11.

  69. 69.

    De Vergottini (2019), pp. 574–575.

  70. 70.

    Venice Commission (2016), par. 50.

  71. 71.

    Venice Commission (2016), par. 78.

  72. 72.

    Venice Commission (2016), par. 83.

  73. 73.

    Venice Commission (2016), par. 84.

  74. 74.

    Venice Commission (2016), par. 86.

  75. 75.

    De Vergottini (2019), p. 574.

  76. 76.

    Venice Commission (2016), par. 88.

  77. 77.

    De Vergottini (2019), p. 578.

  78. 78.

    Venice Commission (2016), par. 89.

  79. 79.

    De Vergottini (2019), pp. 587–588.

  80. 80.

    De Vergottini (2019), pp. 586–587.

  81. 81.

    Venice Commission (2016), par. 102.

  82. 82.

    Venice Commission (2016), par. 104, 110.

  83. 83.

    Venice Commission (2016), par. 113.

  84. 84.

    Venice Commission (2016), par. 139–141.

  85. 85.

    Venice Commission (2016), par. 144.

  86. 86.

    Venice Commission (2016), par. 145, 146.

  87. 87.

    For more detail in particular with respect to Latin America see: Brink and Blass (2017), pp. 296–331.

  88. 88.

    This amounts to a politicization of the judiciary argues Chang (2019), p. 456.

  89. 89.

    §§ 6 par. 1 s. 2, 7 BVerfGG.

  90. 90.

    As Taylor points out in Convention by consensus: Constitutional conventions in Germany, 2014, pp. 303–329, the German opposition e.g. always chairs the budget committee of the Bundestag.

  91. 91.

    Weber (2010), p. 115.

  92. 92.

    E.g. German Constitution, art. 40, sec. 1 (where Parliament is required to “give itself a set of rules of procedure”), which is found in the Bundestag Standing Orders (arts. 54–74).

  93. 93.

    As e.g. the French constitution has expressed this in art. 34 for relations between Government and Parliament. The old constitutions usually did not contain detailed provisions on parliamentary procedure as these have been established by conventions over many decades.

  94. 94.

    Finish Constitution, art. 34 sec. 3.

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    Wolfgang Babeck

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Babeck, W. (2022). Internal Organisation of Parliament and Role of the Opposition. In: Writing Constitutions. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94602-9_4

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