Parliament of Themiclesia

The Parliament of Themiclesia is the bicameral national legislature of Themiclesia, consisting of the House of Lords and House of Commons.

Seat

Physical premises

Unlike many legislatures, the Themiclesian parliament does not operate in a self-contained building or compound. It occupies several sections of the Sk'ên'-ljang Palace (顯陽宮), mainly the Inner (中書上省) and Outer Protonotaries Court (中書下省), Kaw-men Hall (高門殿), Inner (侍中上省) and Outer Court of Attendants (侍中下省), Court of Visitors (客省), Royal Lobbies (殿中臺), and several minor compounds. These sections are non-contiguous and each contain several buildings surrounded by walls.  These premises were inherited from the bodies were reformed into the modern Parliament.

The Inner and Outer Protonotaries courts originally contained the royal secretariat that was elective and later became the House of Commons. These courts are situated on the west side of the palace. The Inner Court served as office and meeting space, while the Outer Court contained residences for members of the secretariat. The Inner Court contains of the main chamber slightly to the compound's north, and said chamber is flanked by two corridors that connected to the peristyle on the inner side of the walls. North of the main chamber is the Grand Gallery, which had several functions over the ages. To the east and west of the chamber are separate committee rooms, and a modern office building, two storeys tall, extends from the west corridor south. The Outer Court consists of rows of one-storey buildings.

The Kaw-men Hall was originally a royal hall for a visiting empress, but the Council of Peers, predecessor of the House of Lords, moved into this vacant building in 1805. Originally, the Council was no more than a few members in size and met in the Court of Attendants, but the Great Settlement brought all the peers to the capital city, whose meetings necessitated grander premises. The hall possesses its own peristyle compound, and quarters for the empress' staff were converted into space for the peers' secretaries and servants. The Inner Court of Attendants thus became a group of committee chambers after several years of disuse. The Outer Court of Attendants has become an archive mostly used by the House of Lords, whose members tended to live in their own houses. Unlike the Court of Protonotaries, the Kaw-men Hall was not extensively added to for legislative purposes.

The Court of Visitors is mostly used today as an area for MPs offices and public events. The parliamentary ballroom is found here. The Royal Lobbies are within the Front Hall and served as fora for members of both houses to meet with the monarch and government ministers in a collegiate context. The space between the Kaw-men Hall and Front Hall is considered non-public; several modern buildings are located in this area and house further parliamentary offices. The same is true with the space between the Inner Court of Protonotaries and the Front Hall, though visitors with permission may still cross this space.

Rebuilding debate

When the first modern parliament met in 1845, democratic principles and the need for a permanent representative faculty were already well-established amongst the political classes. However, no legislature in the world, save for the Camian parliament, had dedicated premises, and the Tyrannian and Merovingian legislatures, renowned in Themiclesia as potential models for legislature reform, sat in royal palaces. In this regard, the Themiclesian parliament's predecessors were entirely normal—they developed out of councils in service to the throne and therefore sat in royal palaces. As developments of the councils that have found political independence, the two reformed houses also inherited the councils' premises. The Tyrannian parliament, the blueprint of the Themiclesian one, sat in a medieval palace that burned down in 1834, but that palace would have been familiar with Themiclesian politicians at the helm in the 1840s, who were in their 60s or 70s. Thus, while many modern legislatures possess iconic buildings, the Themiclesian reformers did not initially regard a building dedicated to parliament as necessary.

Nevertheless, proposals in that direction existed. Nop Trja proposed that a new parliament building be erected outside of the royal palace, and he asserted that buildings possess special significances to both inhabitants and onlookers. To this he added that the Tyrannian parliament was, as of 1845, overseeing the construction of such a building. However, other politicians pointed out that the Tyrannian parliament was currently homeless but fully functional, proving that a functional legislature did not need an exclusive building. At any rate, "building a palace" would seem politically difficult when the legislature recently rejected a royal bill to restore other palaces, and it seems Trja's proposals were of a very early stage, i.e. without an actual plan for the new building.

A wave of proposals appeared again in the late 19th century, when the Tyrannian parliament has moved into a new, dedicated building its architects described as the symbol of a successful political system. At this time, the Liberals heavily romanticized their role in political reforms of previous decades, which led them also to describe the current political system as successful. Liberal prime minister Lord Tl'jang-mjen thus proposed that a new building be erected, but its locale became controversial; Conservative leader the Lord of M'i reiterated that the Tyrannian parliament building was constructed only because the medieval palace burned down and in situ, but the Themiclesian palace, which he dubiously dates to the 3rd century, was standing. He further criticized the Liberals for ignoring the historicity of the existing chambers, "where democracy in this country took root." The matter died when Tl'jang-mjen's government fell in the election of 1878.

The fact that there was still space within the palace for parliament to erect and extend buildings seems to have invalidated most arguments for an entirely new parliament complex on material grounds. In 1865, Emperor Mjen told parliament that he had no objections to expanding its premises, which further dissuaded both houses from moving out of the palace. However, this is not to say that existing buildings were not regularly improved and renovated. In the 1870s, most of the traditional buildings had underground furnaces built to provide heating in winter, and new buildings erected since the early 19th century were all in the Casaterran style, which cost significantly less in materials. The matter that caught legislators' minds was sprawl: the two houses were almost a kilometer apart and interspersed between royal buildings, which appeared to translate into a political distance between the chambers.

See also

• Themiclesia