Composition
The Senate consists of 315 elected members, and as of 2012 five senators for life. The elected senators must be over 40 years of age, are elected by an electorate composed of Italian citizens aged 25 or over and, save for six senators who represent Italians living outside Italy, are elected on a regional basis. The senators for life are composed of former Presidents of the Italian Republic, who hold office ex officio and those who are appointed by the president for "for outstanding merits in the social, scientific, artistic or literary field".
The five current life senators are:
- Carlo Azeglio Ciampi (of law as former President of the Republic) and in order of appointment:
- Giulio Andreotti (former Prime Minister),
- Rita Levi Montalcini (Nobel Prize winner for Medicine 1986),
- Emilio Colombo (former Prime Minister) and
- Mario Monti (Economist and current Prime Minister).
The current Italian President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, was a life senator before his election in 2006; his membership of the Senate is suspended whilst in Presidential office.
The Italian Senate is unusual among European upper houses in that it has almost the same power as its lower counterpart: other than the budget, any law can be initiated in either house, and must be approved in the same form by both houses; additionally the Government must have the consent of both to remain in office (a position which is known as "perfect bicameralism").
The term of office of the Senate is five years. The Senate may be dissolved before the expiration of its normal term by the President of the Republic (e.g. when no government can obtain a majority).
Read more about this topic: Senate Of The Republic (Italy)
Famous quotes containing the word composition:
“Since body and soul are radically different from one another and belong to different worlds, the destruction of the body cannot mean the destruction of the soul, any more than a musical composition can be destroyed when the instrument is destroyed.”
—Oscar Cullman. Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead? The Witness of the New Testament, ch. 1, Epworth Press (1958)
“The naive notion that a mother naturally acquires the complex skills of childrearing simply because she has given birth now seems as absurd to me as enrolling in a nine-month class in composition and imagining that at the end of the course you are now prepared to begin writing War and Peace.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“The proposed Constitution ... is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)