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Legislature
 
 
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Legislature is a type of representative deliberative assembly
Deliberative assembly

A deliberative assembly is an organization comprising members who use parliamentary procedure for making decisions....
 with the power to create and change law
LAW

LAW may refer to:* Anti-tank warfare, e.g. the US Army M72 LAW or the British Army LAW 80*Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights ...
s. The law created by a legislature is called legislation
Legislation

Legislation is law which has been promulgation by a legislature or other governing body. The term may refer to a single law, or the collective body of enacted law, while "statute" is also used to refer to a single law....
 or statutory law
Statutory law

Statutory law or statute law is written law set down by a legislature or other governing authority such as the executive branch of government in response to a perceived need to clarify the functioning of government, improve civil order, to codification existing law, or for an individual or company to obtain special treatment....
. Legislatures are known by many names, the most common being parliament
Parliament

A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modeled after that of the United Kingdom....
 and congress
Congress

A congress is a formal meeting of representatives from different countries , or independent organizations . The term Congress was chosen for the United States Congress to emphasize the status of each state represented there as a self-governing unit....
, although these terms also have more specific meanings.

The main job of the legislature is to make and amend laws. In parliamentary system
Parliamentary system

Parliamentary systems are characterized by no clear-cut separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches, leading to a different set of checks and balances compared to those found in presidential systems....
s of government
Government

Government is the body within any organization that has the authority to make and the power to enforce laws, regulations, or rules. Typically, the government refers to a civil government -- local, provincial, or national -- but commercial, academic, religious, or other formal organizations are also administered by governing bodies....
, the legislature is formally supreme and appoints the executive.






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Legislature is a type of representative deliberative assembly
Deliberative assembly

A deliberative assembly is an organization comprising members who use parliamentary procedure for making decisions....
 with the power to create and change law
LAW

LAW may refer to:* Anti-tank warfare, e.g. the US Army M72 LAW or the British Army LAW 80*Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights ...
s. The law created by a legislature is called legislation
Legislation

Legislation is law which has been promulgation by a legislature or other governing body. The term may refer to a single law, or the collective body of enacted law, while "statute" is also used to refer to a single law....
 or statutory law
Statutory law

Statutory law or statute law is written law set down by a legislature or other governing authority such as the executive branch of government in response to a perceived need to clarify the functioning of government, improve civil order, to codification existing law, or for an individual or company to obtain special treatment....
. Legislatures are known by many names, the most common being parliament
Parliament

A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modeled after that of the United Kingdom....
 and congress
Congress

A congress is a formal meeting of representatives from different countries , or independent organizations . The term Congress was chosen for the United States Congress to emphasize the status of each state represented there as a self-governing unit....
, although these terms also have more specific meanings.

The main job of the legislature is to make and amend laws. In parliamentary system
Parliamentary system

Parliamentary systems are characterized by no clear-cut separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches, leading to a different set of checks and balances compared to those found in presidential systems....
s of government
Government

Government is the body within any organization that has the authority to make and the power to enforce laws, regulations, or rules. Typically, the government refers to a civil government -- local, provincial, or national -- but commercial, academic, religious, or other formal organizations are also administered by governing bodies....
, the legislature is formally supreme and appoints the executive. In presidential system
Presidential system

A presidential system is a system of government where an executive branch exists and presides separately from the legislature, to which it is not wikt:accountable and which cannot, in normal circumstances, wikt:dismiss it....
s of government, the legislature is considered a power branch which is equal to and independent of the executive. In addition to enacting
Act of Parliament

An act of Parliament is a statute wikt:enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament. It is broadly equivalent to an act of Congress in the United States....
 laws, legislatures usually have exclusive authority to raise tax
Tax

To tax is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon an individual or Legal person by a state or the functional equivalent of a state.Taxes are also imposed by many subnational entity....
es and adopt the budget
Budget

Budget generally refers to a list of all planned expenses and revenues. It is a plan for saving and spending. A budget is an important concept in microeconomics, which uses a budget line to illustrate the trade-offs between two or more good ....
 and other money bill
Money bill

In the Westminster system , a money bill or supply bill is a bill that solely concerns taxation or government spending , as opposed to changes in public law....
s.

The primary components of a legislature are one or more chamber
Chamber

Chamber may refer to:*Chamber , a Marvel Comics superhero associated with the X-Men*Chamber , the portion of the barrel or firing cylinder in which the cartridge is inserted prior to being fired...
s or houses: assemblies that debate
Debate

Debate or debating is a formal method of interactive and representational argument. Debate is a broader form of argument than logical argument, which only examine the consistency from axiom, and factual argument, which only examine what is or isn't the case or rhetoric which is technique of persuasion....
 and vote upon bill
Bill (proposed law)

A bill is a proposed new law introduced within a legislature that has not been ratification, adopted, or received royal assent. Once a bill has become law, it is thereafter an Statute; but in popular usage the two terms are often treated interchangeably....
s. A legislature with only one house is called unicameral. A bicameral legislature possesses two separate chambers, usually described as an upper house and a lower house, which often differ in duties, powers, and the methods used for the selection of members. Much rarer have been tricameral legislatures; the most recent existed in the waning years of white-minority rule
Tricameral Parliament

The Tricameral Parliament was the name given to the South African parliament and its structure from 1984 to 1994. While still entrenching the political power of the White section of the South African population , it did give a limited political voice to the country's Coloured and Asians in South Africa population groups....
 in South Africa
South Africa

The Republic of South Africa, also known by Official names of South Africa, is a country located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa....
.

In most parliamentary system
Parliamentary system

Parliamentary systems are characterized by no clear-cut separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches, leading to a different set of checks and balances compared to those found in presidential systems....
s, the lower house is the more powerful house while the upper house is merely a chamber of advice or review. However, in presidential systems, the powers of the two houses are often similar or equal. In federation
Federation

A federation is a Political union comprising a number of partially self-governing states or regions united by a central government. In a federation, the self-governing status of the state is typically constitutionally entrenched and may not be altered by a Unilateralism decision of the central government....
s it is typical for the upper house to represent the component states; the same applies to the supranational legislature of the European Union
European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 European Union member state, located primarily in Europe. It was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community....
. For this purpose the upper house may either contain the delegates of state governments, as is the case in the European Union
European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 European Union member state, located primarily in Europe. It was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community....
 and in Germany
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
 and was the case in the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 before 1913, or be elected according to a formula that grants equal representation to states with smaller populations, as is the case in Australia
Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
 and the modern United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
.

Because members of legislatures usually sit together in a specific room to deliberate, seats in that room may be assigned exclusively to members of the legislature. In parliamentary language, the term seat is sometimes used to mean that someone is a member of a legislature. For example, saying that a legislature has 100 "seats" means that there are 100 members of the legislature, and saying that someone is "contesting a seat" means they are trying to get elected as a member of the legislature.

See also

  • Hansard Society
    Hansard Society

    The Hansard Society is the UK's leading independent, non-partisan political research and educational charity. Its aims are to strengthen parliamentary democracy and encourage greater public involvement in politics, based on the principle that civic society is most effective when its citizens are connected with the institutions and individuals...
  • Legislative Assembly
    Legislative Assembly

    Legislative Assembly is the name given in some countries to either a legislature, or to one of its chambers of parliament. The name is used by a number of member-states of the Commonwealth of Nations, as well as in a number of Latin American countries....
  • Legislative Council
    Legislative Council

    A Legislative Council is the name given to the legislatures, or one of the chambers of the legislature of many nations and colonies.A member of the Legislative Council is commonly referred to as an MLC....