A
Member of Parliament is a representative of the
voters to a
parliament. In many countries
the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as
upper houses often have a unique title, such as
senate, and thus also have unique titles for its
members, such as
senators. Members of parliament tend to
form
parliamentary parties with
members of the same
political party.
The term
Member of Parliament is often shortened in the
media and in every day use to the
initialism "MP".
Westminster system
Australia
In
Australia, the term "Member of
Parliament" refers to Members of the
House of
Representatives, the lower house of the Commonwealth
parliament. Members may use "MP" after their names - previously
"MHR" was used but this is not current. The members of the upper
house of the Commonwealth parliament, the
Senate, are known as "Senators".
In Victoria, Members of the
Legislative Assembly (lower
house) use the post-nominal "MP", but Members of the
Legislative Council (upper
house) use "MLC".
Bangladesh
In
Bangladesh
, members of the Jatiyo
Sangshad, or National Assembly, are elected every five years
and are referred to in English as Members of Parliament. The
assembly has 345 seats, including 45 reserved for women.
Canada
In
Canada
, the Parliament of Canada
consists of the upper house, the Senate of Canada and the lower house, the
Canadian House of Commons,
but only members of the lower house are referred to as Members of
Parliament ( ) in common usage. There are 105 seats in the
Senate and 308 in the House of Commons.
India
In
India
, the term Member of Parliament refers to
all the members of the Sansad, the Indian
Parliament, whether in the chamber of the Lok
Sabha or in that called the Rajya
Sabha.
Members of the Lok Sabha are elected popularly by constituencies in
each of the Indian states and Union territories, while members of
the
Rajya Sabha are elected indirectly
by the State legislatures.
Each state is allocated a fixed number of
representatives in each chamber, with the state of Uttar Pradesh
having the greatest number. The central
government is formed by the party or coalition which has the
greatest number of directly elected members in the Lok Sabha.
Ireland
In
Ireland
, the term Member of Parliament can refer
to the members of the pre-1801 Irish House of Commons of the
Parliament of Ireland.
It can
also refer to Irish members elected to the House of
Commons
of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland
from 1801 to 1922.
Northern
Ireland
continues to elect MPs to the modern Parliament of
the United Kingdom
.
Members of the modern Irish lower house of parliament,
Dáil Éireann (or "the Dáil") are
termed
Teachtaí Dála (
Teachta Dála singular) or TDs. The
upper house is called
Seanad
Éireann. Its members are called Seanadóirí or Senators.
Kenya
The
National Assembly of
Kenya consists of 210 elected members and twelve who are
nominated, all being called Members of Parliament.
Malaysia
The
Malaysian Parliament is
modeled after the Parliament of the United
Kingdom and consists of two houses, known as the
Dewan Rakyat, which is the
House of Representatives,
and Dewan Negara, the Senate.
The members of the
Dewan Rakyat are elected in
general elections or
by-elections, whereas the members of the
Dewan Negara are either appointed by the
king, in recognition of outstanding service
to their country or chosen by the states. Each state appoints a
number of senators proportional to its size.
Members of Parliament are styled
Yang Berhormat
("Honourable") with the initials
Y.B. appended
prenominally. A
prince who is a Member of Parliament is styled
Yang Berhormat Mulia.
Malta
The
Parliament of Malta consists
of 69 seats, and these seats are shared between two political
parties; 35 seats for the
Partit
Nazzjonalista and 34 seats for the
Partit Laburista.
Nauru
The
Parliament of
Nauru
consists of 18 seats and is the legislative
institution of the Republic of Nauru.
The Parliament House is located in the
Yaren
district. Members of Parliament are entitled to use the prefix
The Honourable.
New Zealand
New Zealand
has a unicameral (or
singe chamber) parliament, namely the New Zealand House of
Representatives, although parliament technically consists of
the House and the monarch. Member of
Parliament is now the term for a member of the House of
Representatives, which normally has 120 members, elected at a
general election every three years.
There are 69
constituency
members, seven of whom are elected by the
Māori who have chosen to vote in special
Māori seats, while the remaining 51 members
are elected by
proportional
representation from
party
lists.
Before 1951, New Zealand had a
bicameral (or two-chamber) parliament, and
there were two designations: Member of the House of
Representatives, abbreviated MHR, the body which survives today,
and Member of the
Legislative Council,
abbreviated MLC.
Pakistan
In
Pakistan
, Member of Parliament refers to a member
of Parliament (National
Assembly of Pakistan, Qaumi Assembly). The National Assembly
is based in Islamabad
.
Singapore
In
Singapore
, Members of Parliament refers to elected
members of the Parliament of
Singapore, the appointed Non-Constituency Members
of Parliament from the opposition, as well as the Nominated Members of
Parliament, who may be appointed from members of the public who
have no connection to any political party in
Singapore.
Sri Lanka
In
Sri
Lanka
, Members of Parliament refers to elected
members of the Parliament of Sri
Lanka and National List Member of
Parliament, who are nominated by the contending parties (and
independent groups) in proportion to their share of the national
vote. A government is formed by the party or group that has
the support of the majority of MPs.
United Kingdom
The
United
Kingdom
contains members of three different
parliaments:
Between 1921 and 1973, Northern Ireland was governed by the
Parliament of Northern
Ireland, a devolved assembly whose members were known as
Members of Parliament. The present
Northern Ireland Assembly's
members are known as
Members of the Legislative Assembly
(
MLA).
The
National Assembly for Wales
consists of sixty elected members, but it is not called a
parliament, its members instead being referred to
in
English as
Assembly
Members (
AMs) or in
Welsh as
Aelod y Cynulliad
(
AC).
Members
of the House of
Commons
of the Parliament of the United Kingdom are elected
in general
elections and by-elections to
represent constituencies by the first-past-the-post system of election,
and may remain Members until Parliament is dissolved, which must
occur within five years of the last general election, as laid down
in the Parliament Act
1911.
A candidate to become a Member of Parliament must be a British or
Irish or Commonwealth citizen, must be over 18, and must not be a
public official or officeholder, as set out in the schedule to the
Electoral
Administration Act 2006 [14746] (this was a reduction in the lower age limit,
as candidates needed to be 21 until the law came into effect in
2006).
Members of Parliament are technically forbidden to resign their
seats (though they are not forbidden from refusing to seek
re-election). In order to leave the house between elections
voluntarily, a Member of Parliament must accept a "paid office
under the Crown". Two nominally paid offices under the Crown
– the Stewardship of the
Chiltern Hundreds and the
Manor of Northstead – exist to
allow members to apply for a paid office under the Crown and
thereby to achieve a resignation from the House. Accepting a
salaried Ministerial office does not amount to a paid office under
the Crown for these purposes. For more information, see the article
Resignation from
the British House of Commons.
The basic salary of a member of the House of Commons was increased
to £64,766 with effect from 1 April 2009
[14747]. Some MPs (ministers, the Speaker, senior
opposition leaders etc) receive a supplementary salary for their
specific responsibilities. As of the 1 April 2008 these increments
range from £14,039 for Select Committee Chairs to £130,959 for the
Prime Minister.
Members also receive expenses, including paying for buying and
furnishing accomodation required when away from their main homes.
The pension arrangements of UK MPs are equally generous. The Member
will normally receive a pension of either 1/40th or 1/50th of their
final pensionable salary for each year of pensionable service
depending on the contribution rate they will have chosen. Members
who make contributions of 10% of their salary gain an accrual rate
of 1/40th
[14748].An MP who has served 26 years and
retiring today could look forward to receiving an annual
inflation-proof payout of £40,000 from his pension.According to a
recent report in the Daily Mail, state contributions for British
Members of Parliament are more than four times higher than the
average paid out by companies for final-salary schemes.
Members
of the House of
Lords
, however their membership comes about, are members
of a legislative chamber which is part of the Parliament
of the United Kingdom. Although technically they are part of the
parliament, yet they are never referred to in the United Kingdom as
members of parliament but as
peers,
or more formally as
Lords of Parliament. They sit either
for life, in the case of the
Lords
Temporal, or so long as they continue to occupy their
ecclesiastical positions in the case of the
Lords Spiritual.
Hereditary peers may no longer pass on a
seat in the House of Lords to their heir automatically. The
ninety-two who remain have been elected from among their own
number, following the
House of
Lords Act 1999, and paradocxically are the only elected members
of the Lords.
Zimbabwe
In
Zimbabwe
, the title "Member of Parliament" is used by
members of the House of
Assembly of Zimbabwe.
Other systems
Member of Parliament can be used to
translate the term used to describe representatives in other
parliamentary democracies that do not follow the Westminster
system, who are usually referred to in a different fashion such as
Deputé in France
,
Diputado, Deputado in Portugal
and Brazil
,
Mitglied des Bundestages
(MdB) in Germany
. However, better translations are often
possible.
Austria
In
Austria
, the term Member of Parliament refers to
the members of the two chambers of the Parliament of Austria
(Österreichisches Parlament). The members of the
Nationalrat are called
Abgeordnete zum Nationalrat. The members of the
Bundesrat, elected by the
provincial diets (
Landtage) of the
nine federal
States of Austria,
are known as
Mitglieder des Bundesrats.
Bulgaria
In
Bulgaria
they are 240 MP's in regular
parliament and 400 in the "Great Parliament". The "Great
Parliament is elected when a new constitution is in order. In the
modern
Bulgarian history there
have been seven "Great Parliaments," in 1879, 1881, 1886, 1893,
1911, 1946, and 1990.
Germany
In
Germany, Member of Parliament refers to the
elected members of the federal Bundestag Parliament at the Reichstag building
in Berlin
.
In
German a member is called
Mitglied des deutschen
Bundestages
(MdB
).The 16 federal States of Germany (Länder) are
represented by the Bundesrat
at the former Prussian House of Lords
, whose members are representatives of the
respective Länder's governments and not directly elected
by the people.In accordance with article 38 of the
Basic Law for the
Federal Republic of Germany, which is the German constitution,
"[m]embers of the German Bundestag shall be elected in general,
direct, free, equal, and secret elections. They shall be
representatives of the whole people, not bound by orders or
instructions, and responsible only to their conscience."
Israel
In
Israel
, the term
Member of the Knesset refers to one of the 120 Members of
the Knesset
.
Italy
In the
Republican Italian
Parliament the current term is Deputato (that is deputy as
appointed to act on people's behalf) and so the Lower House takes
the name of Camera dei Deputati. Similarly to
other countries, the Upper House is called
Senato and its members are the
Senatori.The Deputati are known by the title
onorevole (honorable).
Salary and Bonuses
Basic monthly net salary: € 5.486,58 per month.
Parliamentary attendance bonus: up to € 4.003,11 per month.
Constituency ratio compensation: up to € 4,190 per month.
Travel and transportation expenses' refund: between € 3,323.70 and
3,995.10.
Phone expences' refund up to € 3,098.74 per year.
Lebanon
The
Parliament
of Lebanon
is the Lebanese national legislature. It is
elected to a four-year term by universal adult suffrage in
multi-member constituencies, apportioned among Lebanon's diverse
Christian and Muslim denominations. Its major functions are to
elect the
President of the
Republic, to approve the government (although appointed by the
President, the Prime Minister, along with the Cabinet, must retain
the confidence of a majority in the Parliament), and to approve
laws and expenditure. The name of a deputy in Arabic is Naeb
(نائب). The plural of Naeb is Nuwab (نواب).
Republic of Macedonia
In the
Republic of
Macedonia
there are 120 Members of Parliament ( ) which are
called 'Pratenici' (singular Pratenik).
The Netherlands
The
parliament of the Netherlands
as the Staten-Generaal, literally
States-General. It
is
bicameral, divided in two
Kamers (
Chambers). The
Senate is known in Dutch as the
Eerste Kamer (
First Chamber) and its
members as "senatoren", senators.
The House of Representatives
, known in Dutch as the Tweede
Kamer (Second Chamber), is the most important
one. The important debates take place here. Also, the Second
Chamber can edit proposed laws with
amendments and it can propose laws itself. The
Senate doesn't have these capabilities. Its function is more a
technical reviewing of laws. It can only pass a law or reject it.
Both
chambers are in The
Hague
which is the seat of parliament but not the
official capital of the Netherlands, which is Amsterdam
.
The 150 members of the House of Representatives are elected by
general elections every 4 years
(unless the government falls). The 75 members of the Senate are
elected indirectly. The members of the 12 provincial parlements
elect the senators. The value of a vote of a member of a provincial
parlement is relative to the population of the province. Provincial
parlements, the
States-Provincial,
are elected by general elections every four years.
Norway
In
Norway
, the term
Members of Parliament refers to the elected members of the
Norwegian parliament, Stortinget
. These members are called
stortingsrepresentanter. Norway has a two-chamber
parliament, consisting of
Odelstinget and
Lagtinget. Odelstinget contains the majority
of the parliament members (three fourths, or 127 of the total 169
members). Lagtinget contains the last fourth of the members, and is
chosen by popular vote in the parliament at the beginning of each
parliament period (the members of parliament are elected for four
years at a time). The dividing of the parliament into chambers is
only used when it is dealing with passing regular laws and in cases
of prosecution by national court (
riksrett). In other
matters, such as passing the national budget or changing the
constitution (the latter requiring a majority of two-thirds), the
chambers are united.
Poland
Sweden
In
Sweden
,
Members of Parliament refers to the elected members of the
Parliament
of Sweden
( ). In Swedish, an MP is usually referred
to as a
riksdagsledamot or a
riksdagsman (the
former is in more common use today, especially in official
contexts, due its status as a
unisex word,
while the latter was used more often historically and literally
refers to a male MP exclusively).
The parliament is a
unicameral
assembly with 349 members who are chosen every four years in
general elections. In order to
become an MP a person must be entitled to vote (i.e. be a Swedish
citizen, be at least 18 years old and be
or have been resident in Sweden) and must be nominated by a
political
party.
The salaries of the MPs are decided by the
Riksdag Pay Committee (
Riksdagens
arvodesnämnd), a
government agency under the
parliament. Since 1 November 2007, the basic monthly pay of an MP
is
SEK52,900 (ca.
US$8,300). The pay of the
Speaker is SEK126,000 a
month (ca. US$20,000), which is the same as that of the
Prime Minister. The Deputy Speakers
receive an increment of 30 % of the pay of a member. The chairs and
deputy chairs of the parliamentary committees receive a similar
increment of 20 % and 15 % respectively.
According to a survey investigation by the sociologist Jenny
Hansson , Swedish national parliamentarians have an average work
week of 66 hours, including side responsibilities. Hansson's
investigation further reports that the average Swedish national
parliamentarian sleeps 6.5 hours per night.
Thailand
In the
Kingdom of
Thailand
, Members of Parliament
(สมาชิกสภาผู้แทนราษฎร or ส.ส.) refers to the elected members
of the National Assembly
of Thailand. Following the
military coup d'état on 19
September 2006, all its 500 members are suspended from duty until
the next election. The
House of Representatives of
Thailand was fully reconvened after the
general elections under a new
constitution. Under the
2007 Constitution
there are 480 Members of Parliament, 400 elected from
constituencies and the other 80 through party-lists.
Turkey
In the
Republic of
Turkey
, the term member of parliament refers to the
elected members of the Turkish Grand National
Assembly
, or TGNA ( ), whichhas 550 members elected at a
general election for a term of
office of four years.
See also
Footnotes
- Glossary of Parliamentary Terms for intermediate
students
- The National Assembly at bunge.go.ke
- http://www.parliament.uk/about/languages.cfm
-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/oct/22/houseofcommons.uk
- [1]
- House of Lords Reform
, in which members representing the whole of the UK
are elected every five years and are called Members of the European
Parliament (MEPs)
, in which members representing the whole of
Scotland
are elected every four years and are called
Members of the
Scottish Parliament (MSPs)
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