Congress of the Republic (Roden)

The Congress of the Republic ( Congrès de la Republica) is the  of Roden. The Congress is formed by the directly-elected, the People's Assembly and the appointed , the Senate. The People's Assembly is elected in a national basis through 40 constituencies from where 401 deputies are elected. The Senate's 161 senators are appointed by the provincial assemblies following their respective elections. The two houses are independent from one another and never meet jointly except under circumstances specified by the Constitution.

The Costitution provides for the so-called, whereby one chamber, the People's Assembly is more powerful than the. The People's Assembly is the only chamber that can dismiss ministers, pass or amend the budget, or initiate most primary legislation and can override decisions taken by the Senate with an absolute majority vote. However, for certain matters such as the election of the Executive Council, passage of constitutional amendments or legislation affecting the delegation of powers to the provinces, the Congress acts as a perfectly bicameral legislature.

History
Albeit some proto- assemblies, such as the Ambrosian Republic's Consili de San Marin or the County of Albret's Amassada etèrna existed prior to the colonisation of the current Rodenian territory, the first direct ancestor of the Congress of the Republic was established in 1924 by the colonial authorities. The Self-Government Council (Conselh d'autogovèrn) was a mixed body, formed by an equal number of elected representatives and of appointed colonial bureaucrats that served to advise the Governor in matters pertaining to the territories of the Four Provinces (modern-day eastern Roden).

After 1924, successive colonial governments broadened the scope of the Council's powers as well as its size, increasing from 40 members in 1924 to 95 by 1946. During the Rodenian War of Independence (1946-1948), the Council declared itself a, expelling the appointed members and renaming itself National Constituent Assembly. The Constituent Assembly would be dominated by two political parties, the Democratic Action Party and the National Union.

After drafting the constitution of the First Rodenian Republic, the Constituent Assembly became the first Congress of the Republic. However, endemic political instability and a large, reactive military permitted Josep-Maria Singlar to launch a in 1950, suspending the 1948 Constitution and calling for an election that would elect a new constituent assembly in 1951. The rigged election resulted in a body that drafted an authoritarian text largely enabling Singlar to rule without opposition. Between 1951 and 1957, the Rodenian legislature would be known as the 'National Gathering', elected not directly by the population but indirectly through various panels in a structure.

After 1957, when Singlar was overthrown and elected held in 1958, the Second Rodenian Republic commenced. During the three-year democratic interval, the legislature would be renamed 'Congress of the Republic' regaining its democratic nature. However, after 1960 with the start of the FNR regime, when an,  led by Lucien Melz replaced democracy, the Congress was temporarily suspended and when a new constitution was drafted in 1963, the new body, the 'Great National Assembly', was half elected directly and half appointed by the President, Melz. The combination of electoral rigging and the large number of appointed delegates guaranteed its compliant nature.

Only following the death of Melz and the ensuing civil strife of the period between 1986 and 1988, democratic forces in the shape of the Democratic Convergence for Reform (CDtR) regained power, enacting the 1989 Constitution, which enshrined and expanded many of the principles first laid down in the 1947 and 1958 Constitutions while creating considerable on executive power. Amongst the most prominent innovations of the new constitution was its, creating for the first time a two-chamber legislature.

Legislating
The law-making procedure in the Rodenian Congress responds to the legislature's imperfect bicameral design. With certain exception, namely s and affecting the territorial distribution of competences, all legislation is first introduced in the People's Assembly. Legislation can be introduced by individual deputies, private citizens (petitions containing over 50,000 verified signatures) or more often, the Council of Ministers. Certain legislation can be introduced by the appropriate bodies, like, which can be introduced at the behest of the Electoral Office.

After legislation has been introduced before the People's Assembly, the draft bill is 'tabled', that is to say, it is sent to the corresponding committee or committees, alongside private deputies' proposed amending motions for consideration. Within a period of two months during which experts and representatives of different organisations are invited to voice their opinions, the committee studies the various proposals and submits a committee draft to the plenary of the People's Assembly recommending the Assembly to vote for, against or recommending amendments to the bill. Alongside this majority-drafted committee draft, dissenting committee members can also present so-called 'minority considerations'. After the committee draft and the minority considerations are studied by the deputies, the plenary votes on the bill, article per article and then on the bill's text as a whole.

This process is followed in the Senate, albeit with shorter periods for committee review, up to a month. In case the Senate votes down or amends a bill passed by the People's Assembly, the lower chamber can decide whether to accept or reject the Senate's decision by a.

In emergency cases and through the urgent legislative procedure (demenament legislatiu d'urgença), the committee process can be bypassed entirely and a bill can be presented by the Government to the People's Assembly plenary for a single and in case of approval, sent to the Senate for approval within 5 days.

Constitutional amendments
Constitutional amendments, unlike, operate according to a strictly bicameral procedure known as. Per this procedure, any constitutional amendment neither directly proposed by nor by four or more provinces must be introduced in the Constitutional Affairs committee of the People's Assembly. If accepted by the committee it then passes to the Senate's Constitutional Affairs committee. If the committee drafts pass their respective committees, they require a 3/5 majority in both chambers to be enacted. Per the naveta procedure, the text passed by both chambers must be identical, if not an  arbitration committee is created to agree on a final text to be voted again by both chambers.

After receiving the three-fifths approval from both chambers of the Congress, the constitutional amendment must be approved on a referendum where a minimum participation quorum of 50% of electors participate.

Control of the executive
One of the key functions of the Congress is to oversee the work of the, both the Executive Council and the Council of Ministers. Besides electing the members of the Executive Council by a joint session of both chambers though an system; individual deputies may present government members with both questions and. Questions are generally oral and asked in committee or plenary sessions to a members of the government or of the administration. Interpellations however are written and are more specific in aim. Whereas questions usually serve to ash whether a certain claim is true, whether the Government is aware of it, and whether the Government is taking any action about it; interpellations compel and bind the interpelled party to respond and justify a certain government policy.

Individual ministers can be subject to both and, which require an absolute majority of deputies to vote against a minister or the whole Council of Ministers minus the Directors. The Senate does not have the ability to vote for or against ministers, only the People's Assembly can dismiss ministers. The seven members of the Executive Council can not be dismissed, nor nor be the subject of a. Instead, individual directors can be only suspended in a joint session of the two chambers after the remaining Executive Council have voted unanimously to suspend.

Inquests
Per Article xx of the Constitution, members of both chambers have the right to undertake inquests into matters of public interest. For this purpose, they should appoint a special committee (comission d'enquista) formed so that it conforms to the proportions of the various parliamentary groups. In order to fulfill its function as the ordinary organ through which popular sovereignty is exercised, Congress can employ the same investigative and coercive instruments as the judiciary in these inquests.

Joint sessions
The Congress of the Republic meets to vote in joint sessions (sesilha conjunta) in those cases provided for in the Constitution. Joint sessions take place in the building of the People's Assembly at Palatz Piermarini and are presided by the President of the People's Assembly ex officio.

Joint sessions take place in the following cases:


 * to elect the members of the Executive Council on the first Monday a month and a week after the legislative elections to the People's Assembly. Each Director is elected individually in a election by  system in several rounds until a candidate reaches an  of the votes.
 * to receive the Directors' on election.
 * to confirm the suspension of a member of the Executive Council after the remaining Directors unanimously vote to suspend the remaining Director.

Prerogatives
The two chambers of the Congress are constitutionally endowed with certain special prerogatives in order to guarantee their autonomy. The chambers regulate and approve the regulations which govern their internal affairs autonomously (regulatory autonomy), the chambers decide autonomously the amount of resources they require for carrying out their functions (financial autonomy), each chamber is in charge of the organisation of its own administrative facilities and the employment of its own officials (administrative autonomy) and each chamber is inviolable, law enforcement officials can only enter the premises with permission from the majority of each respective chamber.

Individual deputies and senators are protected by the principles of and. As a result, legislators can not be judicially prosecuted for opinions expressed or votes cast in the exercise of their official duties and they may only be detained . In order to prosecute a legislator, law enforcement must first raise a petition to the bicameral Judicial Inquiries Committee, which will decide whether to lift the immunity or not.

is prohibited by the 1989 Constitution in order to protect the freedom of action of legislators. Deputies, albeit not senators, are considered to receive a general mandate from the the entire national electorate. This general assumption however has clashed with the existence of s for individual deputies that is contemplated both in the constitutional text and in the electoral law and developing ordinances. However the difficulties in calling for a recall election have so far impeded any recall attempts.

Senate
The Senate is not directly elected. Instead, its members are appointed via an whereby the provincial legislatures distribute their province's Senate seats proportionately to the composition of the assembly after a provincial election. Elections of the senators don't coincide with the election of the People's Assembly, as provincial elections are held on thirds on odd years.

The apportionment of seats in the Senate works in a similar fashion to that of the People's Assembly although the difference in seats between provinces is much smaller: a 1:6 ratio, as opposed to a 1:13.25 one for the Assembly. In the Senate, every province is assigned 2 seats regardless of population, the remaining 121 seats are later divided on the basis of population per province. The combination of the fixed seats and the small size of the Senate - 161 members - creates a chamber where most provinces hold between 5 and 11 seats, hence giving them a similar voting strength in the Senate, while still taking into account the demographic weight of each.

People's Assembly
The elections to the People's Assembly are held under  system, employing the  (or ) without a formal. The combination of the D'Hont formula and of medium-sized constituencies skews the electoral system considerably in favour of the larger parties while particularly harming the small, nation-wide parties, resulting in a high de facto electoral threshold. The ballots employed permit electors to rank deputies within a specific party list maximising the deputies' chances of being elected ahead of other party-list members if they are particularly popular in their constituency.

The seat apportionment system to the People's Assembly is hybrid. It takes into account both geographical and demographic considerations. Every province is allocated two fixed seats regardless of the population. This works as a small limitation on the demographic weight of the most populated provinces, by over-representing the less populated ones. After the allocation of the 40 fixed seats per province, the remaining 361 seats are assigned demographically per province. After the seats are distributed amongst the provinces, if a province is assigned over fifteen seats, it is divided into more constituencies and the province's assigned seats are allocated per constituency. By province, Nugaro elects a deputy per every 31,612 electors while Albret elects one per 77,407.4 electors, whereas by constituency, the widest gap is between Nugaro and Albret's first constituency, that elects a deputy per every 80,043.3 electors.

The size of the constituencies varies between 4 and 15 deputies. Legally, no constituency may elect more than fifteen deputies. Instead, those provinces that would elect more than 15 are split into several constituencies, that must elect in between 8 and 15 deputies each. The majority of provinces either constitute a single constituency or are divided into two, with the exceptions of Olonees and Polexine (3), Vraita (4) and Albret (5). Constituency boundaries are generally drawn as to elect a roughly similar number of deputies.