Federal Assembly of Tarper

Federal Assembly of Tarper
5th Federal Assembly
Type
Type	Lower House of the Parliament of Tarper
History
Founded	September 10, 2002 (2002-09-10)
Preceded by	People's Chamber (North Tarper)
Leadership
Speaker of the Federal Assembly	Edelmiro Villa, SP since 22 September 2013
Leader of the Federal Assembly	Felix Piatek, SP since 22 September 2013
Shadow Leader	Marie Miles, CDSF since 28 September 2017
Structure
Seats	709
Political groups	Government (420) (Second Herzog cabinet)   SP (246)   GLU (94)   CPT (80) Opposition Parties (289)   CDSF (153)   NLP (69)   CNP (67)
Length of term	4 Years
Elections
Voting system	Single transferable vote
Last election	24 September 2017
Next election	2021
Meeting place
Terraum Palace of Assembly, Center, Terraum
Constitution
Articles of Federalization

The Federal Assembly of Tarper is a constitutional and legislative body at the federal level in Tarper. For its similar function, it is often described as a lower house of parliament..

The Federal Assembly was established by chapter III of the Articles of Federalization (constitution) in 2002 as one of the legislative bodies of Tarper and thus the historical and legal successor to the earlier People's Chamber.

Since 2002 it has met in the Terraum Palace of Assembly. Felix Piatek is the current Leader of the Assembly. Assembly Members (AMs) are usually elected every four years by all Tarperti citizens who are 18 and up in a proportional single transferable vote system. There are currently 709 seats. The Election Day, however, can be earlier if the Chancellor loses a vote of confidence and asks the President to dissolve the Assembly in order to hold new general elections.

History

The earliest form of a legislature in Tarper was the Imperial Council of the Platesan Empire, after the 1848 revolution it was renamed to the National Imperial Congress. Following the dismantling of the Platesan Empire after the Grand Nationalist Revolution of 1889, the succeeding independent Tarperti kingdoms had no known legislatures due to their upholding of absolute monarchy. The United Kingdoms of Tarper employed a unicameral legislature like the Platesan Empire before it, the Tarperti Realm Assembly. After the first civil war, the Tarperti Confederation also had a unicameral system, the People's Grand Assembly. The Republic of Tarper was the first of the Tarperti nations to have a bicameral structure, one for the members of the National Party, the Party Floor, acting as the lower house, and another for the Generals of the Army, the Officer's Chamber, acting as the upper house. During the second civil war, South Tarper kept the Party Floor and rivaling North Tarper had created the Alliance Council, both populated by one party, one unicameral, and the other bicameral. The Federal Republic of Tarper uses a bicameral structure, one for the states and another for the people.

Tasks

Together with the Federal Council, the Federal Assembly is the legislative branch of the Government of Tarper.

Although most legislation is initiated by the executive branch, the Assembly considers the legislative function its most important responsibility, concentrating much of its energy on assessing and amending the government's legislative program. The committees play a prominent role in this process. Plenary sessions provide a forum for members to engage in public debate on legislative issues before them, but they tend to be well attended only when significant legislation is being considered.

The Assembly members are the only federal officials directly elected by the public; the Assembly, in turn, elects the Chancellor and, in addition, exercises oversight of the executive branch on issues of both substantive policy and routine administration. This check on executive power can be employed through binding legislation, public debates on government policy, investigations, and direct questioning of the chancellor or cabinet officials. For example, the Assembly can conduct a question hour (Qs with AMs), in which a government representative responds to a previously submitted written question from a member. Members can ask related questions during the question hour. The questions can concern anything from a major policy issue to a specific constituent's problem. Use of the question hour has increased markedly over the past fifteen years, with more than 20,000 questions being posed during the 2013-2017 term. Understandably, the opposition parties are active in exercising the parliamentary right to scrutinize government actions.

Constituent service does also take place in the form of the Petition Committee. In 2013, the Petition Committee received over 18,000 complaints from citizens and was able to negotiate a mutually satisfactory solution to more than half of them. In 2005, as a pilot of the potential of internet petitions, a version of e-Petitioner was produced for the Assembly. This was a collaborative project involving The Plamyadian Legislature, The University of Terraum's College of Politics and the Assembly's "Online Services Department". The system was formally launched on 1 September 2005, and in 2008 the Assembly moved to a new system based on its evaluation.

Election

Members serve four-year terms, with elections held every four years, or earlier in the relatively rare case that the Assembly is dissolved prematurely by the president. The Assembly can be dissolved by the president on the recommendation of the Chancellor if the latter has lost a vote of confidence in the Federal Assembly if the recommendation is made and accepted before the Assembly acts to elect a new Chancellor. This has not happened in recent the history of the modern Assembly. The procedures for these situations are governed by the Articles of Federalization. The Law regarding the election procedure itself is the Federal Election Act of 2004.

All candidates must be at least eighteen years old; the Chancellor can only hold the office for one term. The election uses the STV electoral system.

Distribution of seats

All of the Members of the Assembly are elected directly from 709 constituencies (Single Transferable Vote system).

Accordingly, each voter has two votes in the elections to the Assembly. The first vote, allowing voters to elect their local representatives to the Federal Assembly, decides which candidates are sent to Parliament from the constituencies.

The second vote is cast for a party list; it determines the relative strengths of the parties represented in the Federal Assembly for archival purposes.

Organization

Parliamentary groups

The most important organizational structures within the Assembly are parliamentary groups or Factions, which are formed by political parties represented in the chamber which incorporate more than 5% of the Federal legislators; since 2017 the SP, GLU, and CPT have formed the Government Faction. The size of a party's faction determines the extent of its representation on legislative committees, the time slots allotted for speaking, the number of committee chairs it can hold, and its representation in executive bodies of the Assembly. The factions, not the members, receive the bulk of government funding for legislative and administrative activities.

The leadership of each faction consists of a party leader, several deputy leaders, and an executive committee. The leadership's major responsibilities are to represent the faction, enforce party discipline, and orchestrate the party's parliamentary activities. The members of each faction are distributed among working groups focused on specific policy-related topics such as social policy, economics, and foreign policy. The faction meets every Tuesday afternoon in the weeks in which the Assembly is in session to consider legislation before the Assembly and formulate the party's position on it.

Parties which do not fulfill the criterion for being a faction but have at least 2 seats in the Federal Assembly can be granted the status of a group of the Federal Assembly. This applied to the Green Party from 2002-2005. This status entails some privileges which are in general less than those of a faction. In the current Assembly, there are no such groups (the Greens had only two AMs in parliament until 2005 and could thus not even be considered a group anymore).

Executive bodies

The Assembly's executive bodies include the Council of Elders and the Presidium. The council consists of the Assembly leadership, together with the most senior representatives of each faction, with the number of these representatives tied to the strength of the Parliamentary groups in the chamber. The council is the coordination hub, determining the daily legislative agenda and assigning committee chairpersons based on Parliamentary group representation. The council also serves as an important forum for inter-party negotiations on specific legislation and procedural issues. The Presidium is responsible for the routine administration of the Assembly, including its clerical and research activities. It consists of the chamber's president (usually elected from the largest faction) and vice presidents (one from each faction).

Committees

Most of the legislative work in the Assembly is the product of standing committees, which exist largely unchanged throughout one legislative period. The number of committees approximates the number of federal ministries, and the titles of each are roughly similar (e.g., defense, agriculture, and labor). There are, as of the current fifth Federal Assembly, 23 standing committees. The distribution of committee chairs and the membership of each committee reflect the relative strength of the various Parliamentary groups in the chamber. In the current fifth Federal Assembly, the SP chaired twelve committees, GLU seven, CPT two, and the CDSF, two. Members of the opposition party can chair a significant number of standing committees (e.g. The budget committee is always chaired by the biggest opposition party). These committees have either a small staff or no staff at all.