National Council Consulta Nazionale | |
---|---|
Leadership | |
President of the Council | |
Structure | |
Seats | 304 |
Meeting place | |
Palazzo Montecitorio, Rome |
The National Council (Consulta Nazionale) was an unelected provisional legislative assembly set up in the Kingdom of Italy after the end of World War II. It fulfilled the roles of parliament until regular elections could be held. It first sat on 25 September 1945 and was dissolved after the national elections on 2 June 1946, which formed the first Constituent Assembly of Italy.
The Legislative Decree n. 146 of 5 April 1945 established the National Council, declaring that its purpose was to give opinions and solutions on general problems and on legislative measures promoted by the Italian government. The government was obliged to hear the opinion of the Council on certain matters such as state budget, taxes and electoral laws. [1]
The Council, divided into 10 commissions, ratified, among other laws, the legislative decree that assigned to a popular referendum the choice between monarchy and republic. It also ratified a law that allowed the universal suffrage for the first time in Italian history. The Council approved also an electoral system based on proportional representation, with multi-member constituencies.
Between 25 September 1945 and 9 March 1946 the National Council met a total of 40 times, but some commissions worked until 10 May. After the 1946 general election and referendum the republic was proclaimed. After the formation of the Italian Constituent Assembly, the Council was finally abolished on 24 June 1946. [2]
Portrait | Name (Birth–Death) | Term of office | Tenure (Years and days) | Political Party | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Carlo Sforza (1872–1952) | 25 September 1945 | 1 June 1946 | 103 days | Italian Republican Party |
An institutional referendum was held in Italy on 2 June 1946, a key event of Italian contemporary history.
The National Assembly was the authoritative legislative body of the Republic of China, commonly referred to as Taiwan after 1949, from 1947 to 2005. Along with the Control Yuan and the Legislative Yuan, the National Assembly formed the tricameral parliament of China.
The Constitution of the Republic of China is the fifth and current constitution of the Republic of China (ROC), ratified by the Kuomintang during the Constituent National Assembly session on 25 December 1946, in Nanjing, and adopted on 25 December 1947. The constitution, along with its Additional Articles, remains effective in ROC-controlled territories.
A constituent assembly is a body assembled for the purpose of drafting or revising a constitution. Members of a constituent assembly may be elected by popular vote, drawn by sortition, appointed, or some combination of these methods. Assemblies are typically considered distinct from a regular legislature, although members of the legislature may compose a significant number of its members. As the fundamental document constituting a state, a constitution cannot normally be modified or amended by the state's normal legislative procedures; instead a constitutional convention or a constituent assembly, the rules for which are normally laid down in the constitution, must be set up. A constituent assembly is usually set up for its specific purpose, which it carries out in a relatively short time, after which the assembly is dissolved. A constituent assembly is a form of representative democracy.
The Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is the current and twenty-sixth constitution of Venezuela. It was drafted in mid-1999 by a constituent assembly that had been created by popular referendum. Adopted in December 1999, it replaced the 1961 Constitution, the longest-serving in Venezuelan history. It was primarily promoted by then President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez and thereafter received strong backing from diverse sectors, including figures involved in promulgating the 1961 constitution such as Luis Miquilena and Carlos Andrés Pérez. Chávez and his followers (chavistas) refer to the 1999 document as the "Constitución Bolivariana" because they assert that it is ideologically descended from the thinking and political philosophy of Simón Bolívar and Bolivarianism. Since the creation of the Constituent National Assembly in August 2017, the Bolivarian government has declared the 1999 constitution suspended until a new constitution is created.
The Italian Parliament is the national parliament of the Italian Republic. It is the representative body of Italian citizens and is the successor to the Parliament of the Kingdom of Italy (1861–1943), the transitional National Council (1943–1945) and the Constituent Assembly (1946–1948). It is a bicameral legislature with 945 elected members and a small number of unelected members. The Italian Parliament is composed of the Chamber of Deputies and Senate of the Republic. The two Houses are independent from one another and never meet jointly except under circumstances specified by the Constitution. Following a referendum on 21 September 2020, the number of MPs in the Parliament will be reduced from 630 to 400 in the Chamber of Deputies and from 315 to 200 in the Senate starting with the next legislature.
The Constitution of the Italian Republic was enacted by the Constituent Assembly on 22 December 1947, with 453 votes in favour and 62 against. The text, which has since been amended sixteen times, was promulgated in an extraordinary edition of Gazzetta Ufficiale on 27 December 1947. The Constituent Assembly was elected by universal suffrage on 2 June 1946, on the same day as the referendum on the abolition of the monarchy was held. The election was held in all Italian provinces. The Constitution was drafted in 1946 and came into force on 1 January 1948, one century after the Constitution of the Kingdom of Italy, the Statuto Albertino, had been enacted.
National-level elections in Italy are called periodically to form a parliament consisting of two houses: the Chamber of Deputies with 630 members; and the Senate of the Republic with 315 elected members, plus a few appointed senators for life. Italy is a parliamentary republic: the President of the Republic is elected for a seven-year term by the two houses of Parliament in joint session, together with special electors appointed by the Regional Councils.
The National Assembly of People's Power is the unicameral parliament of the Republic of Cuba. It is currently composed of 605 representatives who are elected from multi-member electoral districts for a term of five years. The current President of the Assembly is Esteban Lazo Hernández. The Assembly only meets twice a year, with the 31 member Council of State exercising legislative power throughout the rest of the year. The most recent elections were held on 11 March 2018. After the 2023 elections, the number of representatives will decrease to 474.
The Provisional Government of the French Republic (PGFR) (French: Gouvernement provisoire de la République française is a name for an interim government of Free France between 3 June 1944 and 27 October 1946 following the liberation of continental France after Operations Overlord and Dragoon, and lasted until the establishment of the French Fourth Republic. Its establishment marked the official restoration and re-establishment of a provisional French Republic, assuring continuity with the defunct French Third Republic.
The Italian Constituent Assembly was a parliamentary chamber which existed in Italy from 25 June 1946 until 31 January 1948. It had the task to write a constitution for the Italian Republic, which had replaced the Kingdom of Italy after the Italian civil war.
Gaston Monnerville was a French politician and lawyer.
The Republic of Niger has had seven constitutions, two substantial constitutional revisions, and two periods of rule by decree since its independence from French colonial rule in 1960. The current "Seventh Republic" operates under the Constitution of 2010.
The Constitution of the Philippines is the constitution or supreme law of the Republic of the Philippines. Its final draft was completed by the Constitutional Commission on October 12, 1986, and was ratified by a nationwide plebiscite on February 2, 1987.
In Yugoslavia, elections were held while it had existed as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the first one being in 1918 for the Provisional Popular Legislature of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and the last being the parliamentary election of 1938. Women were not eligible to vote. After the 1918 indirect ones, the 1920 parliamentary election was the first direct one. Parliamentary elections were held in 1923, 1925 and 1927, while with the new constitution a de facto Lower and Upper House were introduced in 1931. The 1931 elections were not free, as they were handled under a single-course dictatorship, while the 1935 and 1938 were held under limited basic democratic principles.
The Ukrainian Constituent Assembly was a planned All-National Congress which was supposed to confirm the Constitution of the Ukrainian People's Republic and establish a new political system. The Assembly was supposed to be the supreme state power and elections to which were to be organized by the Central Council, which would hold its sessions between the meetings of the Assembly. The Assembly was suspended because of the Bolshevik aggression in the Ukrainian–Soviet War of December 25, 1917 that led to a proclamation of Ukrainian independence by the IV Universal.
In France there are two types of referendum:
The Tunisian Constitution of 2014 was adopted on 26 January 2014 by the Constituent Assembly elected on 23 October 2011 in the wake of Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution that overthrew President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. It was passed on 10 February 2014, replacing the constitutional law of 16 December 2011 that temporarily formed the basis of government after the suspension of the Constitution of 1959.
The Constitution of Costa Rica is the supreme law of Costa Rica. At the end of the 1948 Costa Rican Civil War, José Figueres Ferrer oversaw the Costa Rican Constitutional Assembly, which drafted the document. It was approved on 1949 November 7. Several older constitutions had been in effect starting from 1812, with the most recent former constitution ratified in 1871. The Costa Rican Constitution is remarkable in that in its Article 12 abolished the Costa Rican military, making it the second nation after Japan to do so by law. Another unusual clause is an amendment asserting the right to live in a healthy natural environment.
The Constitution of the French Republic of 27 October 1946 was the constitution of the French Fourth Republic.