Talk:Parliament

Old comments
24.93.53.xxx: why did you delete the comment about the Australian Senate being modelled after the U.S. Senate? Yes, the Australian Senate is different from the U.S. Senate -- but the authors of the Australian Senate got the idea from the U.S., and the Australian Senate is much closer to the U.S. Senate than to the Canadian Senate or the House of Lords. -- SJK

--

My mistake. A bit too quick on the cut function.

this page really wants some good history of the english/french parliaments, ~1000-1900. if i had time ...

--

I don't think it's appropriate to redirect British Parliament here. There are many different parliaments in the world. -- Montréalais

I agree - this article should be about parliaments in general and the British Parliament should have its own article. --mav

I agree. I was very surprised to find poop there was no article on the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Maybe a mention of a "parliament of owls", too? ;-) -- Zoe

Issues
I don't think it is correct to say that Congress is the opposite of Parliament, since they have more in common than not. AJK 15:50, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

---

Why does the first image have the caption 'The Dutch Parliament' but the alternate text reads 'Swiss Federal Council'? Which is correct? Deus Ex 18:17, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

---

what is the role of the position of president in the parliamentary system?? --Oldman 14:31, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 The party that can win the most seats in the House of Commons forms the government, and the party leader becomes the Prime Minister and head of government.

This statement sounds like complete nonsense to American ears. Does the term "the government" have a special meaning or technical meaning here?? What does it mean for "a party to form the government"? YOU might know what it means, if you're British, but this is not explained well at all in the article. Revolver 07:50, 8 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Revolver, having noticed a few of these comments from you on talk pages related to politics and government I can't help but ask if you're being deliberately bloody-minded. Isn't it patently obvious from the context that "the government" in this sense is what Americans might call "the administration"? There is no special or technical meaning here at all. If a party forms the government it means that party supplies the ministers who run the country. All this is explained clearly in the article. &mdash; Trilobite (Talk) 15:05, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Anglo focus
The article suggests that most parliaments in the world follow the British model in all detail. Outside of the English-speaking world this is nonsense. Which non-anglo-saxon "lower houses" are called "House of Represenatives"? In which countries does the head of state formally open and close parliament? In which countries does the upper house only approve bills? Certainly not in Germany, France, Switzerland, Russia,...

This article really should be renamed "British Parliament".--80.219.127.198 00:44, 21 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Haha, well, i think that's a perspective of phrasing. Go ahead and try to clean it up. The English like to think that everything they got from the Viking era, are in fact theirs. The reality is that all the early parliaments were a projection of the Viking / Nordic approach to government. The early rulers of "England" were generally royalty from Norwegian or Danish kingdoms. That's why for example "Sicily" has an early "parliament" - Sicily at the time was in fact ruled by Norman conquerors. Psm (talk) 22:26, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Numbers Game
I was shocked to read there are 574 lifetime members of the British parliament. Especially when compared to the statement in the following paragraph that the "upper house has anywhere from 20 to 100 seats". Are these figures correct because the following two paragraphs from the article seem at odds...

The House of Commons is composed of over 600 members....The House of Lords is a body of...unelected members: 92 of whom inherit their seats and 574 of whom have been appointed to lifetime seats.

A parliament's lower house is usually composed of at least 200 members, in countries with populations of over 3 million. The number of seats rarely exceeds 400, even in very large countries. The upper house customarily has anywhere from 20, 50, or 100 seats, but almost always significantly fewer than the lower house. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Awf78 (talk • contribs) 01:41, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Distinctions between Parliament and non-Parliament systems
"While all parliaments are legislatures, not all legislatures are parliaments."

As the article stands currently, it's still unclear what makes a legislative body a "parliament". While there is a brief mention of the difference between parliaments and congresses, I think that further discussion of how parliaments compare and contrast to other legislative systems is warranted. -- 15:40, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

This article is wrong from the start. It needs to be fundamentally redone, although much material could be kept. Parliaments existed for hundreds of years before the so-called "parliamentary" form of government in which the real executive/cabinet became responsible to the representative body/parliament. In England in particular, there was a separation of powers between king and parliament, at least after the principle was established that the king was not absolute. In other words, England had something like the US presidential system (with a king rather than a president, though), and this is what the authors of the US constitution copied, without realizing that they were copying an outdated version (as it worked before the principle of cabinet responsibility to parliament slowly came into existence). Whoever wrote this is confused by the terminology of "parliamentary" and "presidential" systems, which properly should be called "fusion of powers" and "separation of powers" systems. Instead of being the opposite of a parliament, the US Congress IS another parliament (however odd this may sound to Americans). The American parliament (called "the Congress") is more like the British Parliament in the early 18th century than is the contemporary British Paliament. In fact, Samuel P. Huntington--in an important essay included as a chapter in his classic work first published in 1967--shows that the US Constitution is modelled on the Tudor era British constitution. In any case, there are parliaments in presidential systems just as in cabinet/parliamentary/fusion of powers systems. Don't feel too bad, though, for--as a professor of political science--I have seen the same mistake in at least one political science textbook (written by someone who knew a lot about measuring public opinion, etc. but not so much about institutions). Eleanor1944 (talk) 05:40, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

British focus
I understand from the earliest comments above that this started off as the article on the UK parliament. That has been changed since then, but there is still a lot of talk about that specific parliament. A historical overview should indeed contain a fair bit on the British parliament, but this is a bit too much detail, which had better be placed in an article on the history of British politics. DirkvdM 14:31, 8 February 2006 (UTC)


 * 03-January-2007  (11 months later): There is also a specific article "British Parliament" which redirects to the UK-specific topic (begun October 2001). After comparing both articles, please feel free to move British-only text into the "British Parliament" article. -Wikid77 22:34, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Only national?
While writing on Dutch politics I point out that the three tiers of government are structured almost the same. So I ended up calling the municipal and provincial legislative branches of government parliaments. But then I realised that that is not usual. However, it makes sense because they perform the same function in the same structure, just on a different level. Maybe the custom of only using the word 'parliament' for the national government stems from its English origins, where the differnt levels are organised differently (I don't know, realy)? DirkvdM 14:36, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

History of the concept of Parliament
Shouldn't this article contain something about the history of Parliament? For instance, I think (but not sure) that the Parliament of Iceland (can't remember its name) is perhaps the oldest in the world. The Sicilian Parliament dates back to 1091, and they sometimes claim to have the oldest in the world, but I am sure the Icelandic one (and perhaps some others) are older. Shouldn't there be a sense of all this somewhere in this artilce? ρ¡ρρµ δ→θ∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!)  22:50, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the question of early systems, e.g., Mesopotamia: Whether they were democratic or oligarchical misses the point. Early parliaments in Europe were not democratic. The British House of Commons was extremely oligarchical until the changes made in 1832, 1867, 1884, etc. And of course the British upper house is oligarchical (though fortunately without real power anymore). The US parliament (Congress) is not fully democratic, as the principle of equal representation of states without regard to population is applied in the case of the Senate. And extensive gerrymandering violates democratic principles. This is in addition to the power of money in elections and other factors that make all governments oligarchiical in one way or another. Eleanor1944 (talk) 19:10, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Regarding history: i removed the Leon reference, i think it's sloppy reading of sources - UNESCO cites it as oldest surviving documents, not oldest (documented) parliament. Regardless, UNESCO is a dubious arbiter of history. Below is what i removed. Anybody who wants to put it back in, please clarify what "oldest documentary manifestation" means; my reading is it refers to the age / completeness of written records, not oldest manifestation of the phenomenon of "parliament" per se. Psm (talk) 22:21, 23 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Cortes of León: Kingdom of León (Spain) in 1188. Alfonso IX of León created a parliament (Cortes) including representatives of the nobles, the church and the populace. According to the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme, it is the oldest documentary manifestation of the European parliamentary system.

Scotland's Parliament
I reverted the edit removing the first paragraph of this section, because that paragraph is meant to clarify that certain assemblies can't be considered to be Parliaments, and also to introduce the reader to the history behind the Parliament. Hope that explains everything. Johnleemk | Talk 03:12, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

"Form of government parliamentary.png"
The image "Form of government parliamentary.png" placed on the top of the page is quite nice, except for one thing: Japan. Albeit a constitutional monarchy and having the Emperor as the head of state, the office of the Emperor does not hold any power or sovereignty and is only defined as a national symbol. The parliament is therefore both de facto and de jure supreme, so it's probably more appropriate to color it orange rather than red on this map. Uly 00:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Whether or not the Japanese parliament is de jure supreme, the Emperor is the de jure monarch, and thus Japan is a monarchy and not a republic; so Japan should be coloured red. This is consistent with the other parliamentary constitutional monarchies in the image. --thirty-seven 05:20, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

map green?
Although the caption describes green nations, none are in the graphic. Cna the caption or the map be properly edited? ThuranX 21:29, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Democracy
I just used the argument at the ref desk that a parliament doesn't necessarily mean a democracy. It's a place where politicians talk (parler). But the two terms are closely related, so I'm surprised the word 'democracy' doesn't appear even once in the article. Is what I said correct? And what is the relationship between the two terms? DirkvdM 07:57, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Screen-size
03-January-2007: Since the article "parliament" is a major topic, I have added internal formatting codes to handle a broad range of users with extremely large or narrow-screen display issues:


 * joined-words ( "&nbsp" ): To avoid word-wrap of one-word-per-line wrapping, after a wide image, join the start-words with "nbsp" codes.  A text line will wrap below an image when a word is too long to fit beside that image.  After the wide Unibicameral-image, the text begins "The_number_of seats" where each word is joined by a non-breaking space (code of "&nbsp" ). If the screen is narrowed shorter than phrase "The_number_of" then the wrapped text will skip to the end of the image, where the entire phrase will fit on the next line.  Such joined-words, on narrow screens, will avoid one-word per line wrapping: The / number / of / etc.


 * text-gaps: On large screens, to avoid huge gaps in the article's text, same-side images must be spaced with large sections of text between them, to word-wrap into the gap above an image. Rule: a righthand-side image must be preceded with enough text to fill the space beside the previous righthand image above it.  The problem occurs mostly with long, narrow, vertical navigation-boxes (added to many articles in 2006); when a vertical navigation-box is lengthened, then even more text must occur between the navigation-box and the next righthand image down.  A lefthand navigation-box would not cause the text-gaps, since alternating lefthand/righthand images wrap intervening text without gaps.  The use of navigation-boxes is a complicated issue; however, horizontal navigation-boxes at the end of an article avoid the text-gap problems of future expansions to a navigation-box.

In general, a frequently-read article should be written to support both wide/narrow screens, testing by expanding/shrinking the display window to see the resulting word-wrapping around various images. Clean, flexible formatting per screen-size is not automatic in Wiki of 2007; flexible formatting requires planning the spacing between images and adding embedded format-codes inside an article. -Wikid77 18:51, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Miscellaneous

 * (This section is for other, untitled issues.) -Wikid77 22:07, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

India being the largest democracy in the world with vital importance has not even been specified as democracy nor as parliament ? Why So ? 15.219.169.74 (talk) 05:36, 10 December 2014 (UTC) Ravindra Patil — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.16.202.247 (talk) 01:14, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Why isn't the Surpreme Soviet listed as a defunct parliament? Kanga-Kucha — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.16.202.247 (talk) 01:14, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Alþingið
There's a mention of the Icelandic Alþing about it being the oldest parliament in the world. However, it was disassembled (or how it's called) for the greater part of the early 19th century. The oldest parliament which has worked without break is the Tynwald of the Isle of Man. Furthermore, recent studies (these are mentioned on the various History of the Faroe Islands sites) indicate, that the Faroese parliament, the Løgting is actually older than the Alþing. It too did have a defunct period, but as far as I can remember, it was shorter than the Icelandic. (Faroese period was 1816-52) Mulder1982 20:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)


 * You're right. It's been sitting there waiting for a citation for some time now, and I'd agree that it should be removed unless someone would like to defend the assertion with a source.  I sort of think the picture of the Althing at the top of the article should go too. — mholland 20:30, 11 February 2007 (UTC)


 * "The foundation of Althingi (parliament) at Thingvellir in AD 930 marked the beginning of the old Icelandic Commonwealth. Althingi continued to meet at Thingvellir until 1798."
 * From http://www.althingi.is/pdf/enska.pdf.
 * Page 7 of this document details the 19th century. "A [Danish] royal decree issued June 6, 1800 declared that Althingi should be abolished. " ... "A royal decree providing for the establishment of a new Althingi was issued on March 8, 1843."
 * http://www.althingi.is is the website of the Icelandic Parliament. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.37.19.98 (talk) 08:58, 28 February 2007 (UTC).

Image:Unibicameral Map.jpg
A couple of apparently unconnected anons have recently removed Image:Unibicameral Map.jpg from this page. Is it defective in some way I am unaware of? — mholland 22:58, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Difference between its synonyms
I don't well understand the difference between the nuances of "parliament", "(national) assembly", "congress" and "diet" because I'm not a native speaker of English. Please anyone explain it. ―  韓斌 / Yes0song  ( 談笑  筆跡   다지모 ) 12:37, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

parliament
why is it necessary for 1 person to speak during parliament? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.15.69.108 (talk) 00:13, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

"Spanish" parliaments
I'll leave a comment here since I don't want to be part of any childish edit battle. The parliaments mentioned in the section of Spain are parliaments of the kingdoms prior to the formation of the country. In fact, Spain is de jure united once the Aragonese parliaments are abolished. So calling Spanish the parliaments of the Crown of Aragon is a blatant anachronism, comparable to calling British the parliament of Scotland before the Acts of Union with England. I admit, however, they might be "Spanish" in a geographical context, and in that way Hispanic or Iberian are preferable terms in English. --Purplefire (talk) 12:04, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Equivalent National Legislatures
Excuse my ignorance, but wouldn't many legislatures count, such as the American Congress?Cameron Nedland (talk) 16:05, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Video: Democracy For Dummies - External Link Suggestion
Please view this film from an online youth magazine as I would like to submit it as an external link. Thanks Willsmore (talk) 13:37, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

History of the Parliament
While I think including information about non western cultures is good,I think we have to give them the place they really deserve.This articles begins with two headings devoted to India and the caliphate,and we all know they didn´t have anything close to the real parliament,and that those traditions had ZERO influence in the modern parliamentery system.With the same criterion,we should include the athenian assembly,the roman senate,and many more things. Therefore,I´ll remove the India and the caliphate section, and create and "early representative systems",section,where I´ll include info about Greece,Rome,India and the caliphate.--Knight1993 (talk) 16:07, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

List suggestion for this topic. "National legislatures by year of establishment"
How about a 'List of national legislatures by their year of establishment'? CaribDigita (talk) 00:25, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Issue with lead
It seems like the introductory paragraph for the article has been partly removed, as the article starts mid sentence. Zaargg (talk) 19:52, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, it was vandalised a few days ago. Fixed now. Thanks for picking this up. HiLo48 (talk) 22:23, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Remove statement about queen
The Queen is head of state and not head of government, and Parliament traditionally introduces a pro-forma bill after the queen's speech specifically to demonstrate that it can legally undertake business without the approval of the monarach.

Roadrunner (talk) 06:06, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Orthodox countries
Orhodox countries hadn't parliments until the second half of the 19th century. Advisory plenums (councils like "duma" etc are not parliaments) Parliaments must have -at least- equal rights as the monarchs, or it must have supremacy over the monarch. Russia lived in ancient eastern government-form: DESPOTISM, where the duma was only an Advisory plenums.(not confuse with absolutism)

Advisory plenums ( COUNCILS of monarchs ) existed on all corner of the Earth, since the beginnings of the first human civilisations. Please don't confuse the councils and parliaments!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.6.147.61 (talk) 10:00, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

sp "parliamnet"
9 x in other wp articles sp wrong01:18, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Moving the Section "Parliaments of the United Kingdom"
The section on the parliaments of the United Kingdom seems to give an unfair importance to that country with respect to others. I propose to move it altogether to the page for the UK parliament. Skater00 (talk) 17:08, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Moved this to a sub-section under 'Development of modern parliaments' and placed it alongside the Parliament of Sweden, others can be added. Also reordered to place the section on modern 'Parliamentary government' after this section, which should be more logical to readers. Whizz40 (talk) 19:39, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Omission of the Sicilian Parliament
As usual the English wikipedia tends to ignore Italian issues of history. One of the first European Parliaments was in Sicily 1097 at Mazara del Vallo;it was then itinerant. Since 1130 it was established in Palermo, Palazzo dei Normanni (see wiki.it).Aldrasto11 (talk) 03:49, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

First Parliament in European History
I have nothing against any nation or culture, but according to UNESCO the oldest document of the existence of a parliament was in Spain, specifically in the Kingdom of León. Why is it stated on the page that it was in the Nordic countries in the Viking Age? There is no document that affirms such thing, the only sources that I have seen added were articles of opinion and blogs that do not even speak of Parliament, only Nordic laws, councils and Sicilian legislatures. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.94.210.236 (talk) 15:23, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
 * It's certainly worth mentioning them in some capacity in an "Origins" section. Your "UNESCO" reference is too short and vague to support your very strong claim that the well-documented Althing should be completely ignored and removed from the article. power~enwiki ( π,  ν ) 17:15, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

But what validity do all these sources have about the Nordic parliaments if it is UNESCO that is claiming that the oldest was the Leon? It does not make any sense, and it is self-deception. And the first paragraph is completely without source. If we demand a page with rigor put source or eliminate it.

On the others, you're right, it's okay not to eliminate them and mention them, but you can not say that they were the first ones. Officially the first was in León by UNESCO. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.94.210.236 (talk) 18:21, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Let's merge the Origins section into the section that follows then each of the topics can be addressed in prose with due weight. Whizz40 (talk) 08:34, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Russia and Novogrod had not Parliaments
Novogrod had rather a so-called city council in modern terms like the medieval and early modern Italian city states, since it had representation only from the city, and not a real represantation from the whole territory.

Duma and Russia had no parliament in the legal sense until the20th century, since it was mostly a consultant body, and not real legislature on its own.--Creator Edition (talk) 15:47, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

I suggest to remove it, because it mislead the users. --Creator Edition (talk) 15:47, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Minimum criterias of Parliaments
ancient and medieval and early modern era non-European and Orthodox Christian "examples" were not parliaments at all.

Why?


 * Parliament is NOT a simple advisory board/body of the monarchs, but the supreme legislative institution in a given state/country.
 * Parliaments are not only a council of a local government of a single city/settlement, which rule over non-represented vast areas/territories (Like Roman Senate, or medieval Novgorod) but they have a territorially well distributed representation of the whole country (like nobility and Church clergy of medieval counties/provinces and church districts, and burgeroise of bigest important cities.)
 * Their legal acts are laws, which are hierarhically higher legal norm than the orders/acts of monarchs / presidents
 * It is at least politically constitutionally equal or stronger institution than the monarch or president.
 * There is a constitution in the given country, historic "unwritten" constitution (like England) or written modern constitution, which ensure the solid status and power of that legislative body.--Creator Edition (talk) 07:18, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Parliament under Henry VIII and Edward VI - "Williams"
The final paragraph in the above section quotes "Wiliams".

"As Williams described it, 'King and parliament were not separate entities, but a single body, of which the monarch was the senior partner and the Lords and the Commons the lesser, but still essential, members.'" Who is Williams? The name does not appear anywhere else in the article (at least as far as I can see). Am I missing something obvious?

ritenerek talk :) 01:53, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 05:41, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Centre Block - Parliament Hill.jpg