The Italian Parliament (Italian: Parlamento Italiano) is the national parliament of Italy. It is a bicameral legislature with 945 elected members (parlamentari). It is composed of the Chamber of Deputies, with 630 members (deputati), and the Senate of the Republic, with 315 members (senatori). Both houses have the same duties and powers, and the Constitution does not make distinctions between them. But, because the President of the Senate stands in the role of Head of State when the President of the Republic needs to be replaced, the Senate is traditionally considered the upper house.
Since 2005, a party list electoral law is being used in both houses. A majority prize is given to the coalition obtaining a plurality: at national level for the Chamber, at regional level for the Senate.
Read more about Italian Parliament: Function of The Parliament, Electoral System
Famous quotes containing the words italian and/or parliament:
“If the study of his images
Is the study of man, this image of Saturday,
This Italian symbol, this Southern landscape, is like
A waking, as in images we awake,
Within the very object that we seek,
Participants of its being.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“At the ramparts on the cliff near the old Parliament House I counted twenty-four thirty-two-pounders in a row, pointed over the harbor, with their balls piled pyramid-wise between them,—there are said to be in all about one hundred and eighty guns mounted at Quebec,—all which were faithfully kept dusted by officials, in accordance with the motto, “In time of peace prepare for war”; but I saw no preparations for peace: she was plainly an uninvited guest.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)