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Unit 8: Constitutional Structure: Legislature

Each House of the Parliament has its presiding officers and a bureau. The chairman of the National Notes
Assembly is not called the Speaker as in other democratic countries, he is designated as the ‘President’
elected by the house for the duration of the chamber. The chairman of the Senate, called the President,
is elected by the chamber for a term of three years. That is, his election is renewed after every partial
organisation. The Presidents of both houses are elected by secret ballot with absolute majority of the
membership of the house at the first and second ballots, but a relative majority is deemed sufficient at
the third ballot. The presiding officers of both houses perform functions usually granted to the chairman
of a democratic chamber like maintenance of order and discipline in the chamber, recognising and
naming the members, allowing debates, giving ruling and counting votes to declare the result etc. In
addition to these conventional functions, they are also consulted by the President when he wants to
declare emergency or dissolve the National Assembly. Each house elects its own bureau consisting of
the President, Vice-President(6 for the Assembly and 4 for the Senate), secretaries (12 for the Assembly
and 4 for the Senate) and ‘questeurs’ who are responsible for the administrative and financial
arrangement of the house. The functions of the bureau as a body relate to the organisation and
supervision of the different services in the house ; they also pertain to the rendering of advice to the
presiding officer in matters put before the house.
The powers and position of the presiding officers of the Assembly and of the Senate appear unusual
to a student of comparative government and politics who keeps in his mind the cases of English and
American representative systems. The presiding officer of National Assembly is a partyman like the
American Speaker, but his position is inferior to the President of the Senate in order of precedence. In
case there is a dispute between the Government and the President of the National Assembly over the
question of constitutional validity of a bill moved by a private member, the matter is to be settled by
the Constitutional Council. It makes the French Speaker (President of the National Assembly)
subservient to the control of a non-legislative agency. Finally, the election of the President of the
Assembly for the full duration the house (though it has been devised as an improvement upon the
situation of the pre-1958 period when he was elected for a year only) is still inherent with the serious
lacuna that a longer and safer tenure has strengthened his position of staying in politics while being
in the chair demanding non-partisanship.
Functions and Powers: We have seen that the framers of the new Constitution were successful in
breaking the ‘teeth’ of the National Assembly by making it subservient to the will of the Government.
It, however, does not imply that French Parliament is a prototype of the National People’s Congress
of China which is hardly anything more than a constitutional rubber-stamp in the hands of the arch-
leadership of the ruling party. It is said that the de Gaulle Constitution establishes a ‘rationalised’
Parliament in view of the fact that its two ordinary sessions are allowed as a matter of right subject to
the arrangement of extraordinary sessions either convened by the President (on the advice of the
Prime Minister) or by its own members, that it can legislate only on ‘matters defined in the
Constitution’, that the order of business is now fixed by the Government, that the President of National
Assembly is elected for the full duration of the house and of the Senate for a period of three years,
that the Parliament is no longer free to establish its own standing orders, that the number of
parliamentary committees is reduced, that Government bills come before the house as a whole for
discussion, and last, that the Government has the right to reject all amendments and to demand a
single vote on its own text with only those amendments which it accepts—a procedure known as the
‘blocked’ vote.
The functions and powers of the Parliament may be discussed under three heads—(i) relating to law-
making, (ii) control over Government, and (iii) supervision over the President. First we take up the
legislative powers of the Parliament where it has a circumscribed authority. A very peculiar
arrangement is provided by Art. 34 of the Constitution which divides the field of legislative competence
into two parts. In the first category come the laws which shall establish the rules concerning:
1. civil rights and the fundamental guarantees granted to the citizens for the exercise of their
public liberties ; the obligations imposed by the national defence upon the persons and property
of citizens;
2. nationality, status and legal capacity of persons, marriage contracts, inheritance and gifts;

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