Bicamerality: Lower and Upper House

The legislative power of a nation Its purpose is to elaboration of the laws. In many nations this power is embodied in two differentiated houses of representation, an upper house or senate and a lower house or congress. The term bicamerality is used to designate this system.

The two-chamber model has, as a general criterion, a double purpose: to establish a system of Balance of power and, on the other hand, that one of the two spaces acts as a counterweight to the other.

The political system of Spain

In the Constitution Spanish in 1978 a bicameral model is established. On the one hand there is the Congress of Deputies and on the other the Senate.

Congress is the representative body of citizens. They directly elect their representatives or deputies, whose mission is to draft laws. These laws are debated in plenary session and later discussed in the different working committees where the different parliamentary groups present amendments to the proposed laws.

The Senate is a second chamber, that is, a review body of the Congress of Deputies. He himself has a

functioning very similar to Congress, but it has a peculiarity: a part of the senators are not directly elected by the citizens, but are appointed by the autonomous communities. The fundamental function of the Senate is to carry out a second reading of the laws previously elaborated in the Congress.

The British political system

The United Kingdom is made up of four nations: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. All these nations share the same monarch and for this reason it is a parliamentary monarchy.

The British Parliament is bicameral: the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The first is made up of 650 members who have been directly elected by universal suffrage and each of the parliamentarians represents an electoral district.

The second chamber does not have a fixed number of representatives and, on the other hand, its members have not been elected by universal suffrage (the spiritual lords are members of the Anglican Church or of the nobility and their positions are for life and temporary lords are appointed by the British monarch based on their experience and qualification). Its function is twofold: to review the projects of law of the House of Commons and, moreover, act as a court of appeal.

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Issues in Bicamerality: Lower and Upper House