Chamber of Deputies (Luxembourg)

This article or section needs to be revised. Details should be given on the talk page. Please help to improve it , and then remove this flag.

Chambre des Députés
Chamber of Deputies

logo	Entrance portal to the Chamber
Basic data
Legislative period :	five years
MPs:	60
Current legislative period
Last choice:	October 14, 2018
Chair:	Fernand Etgen (DP)
9 10 12 2 2 21st 4th 9 10 12 2 2 21st 4th
Distribution of seats:	Government (31) DP 12 LSAP 10 Green 9 Opposition (29) CSV 21 ADR 4 Lénk 2 Pirate 2
Website
http://www.chd.lu

The Chamber of Deputies ( Luxembourgish Chamber ; French Chambre des Députés ) is the parliament of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg . The Chamber is the legislature of the Grand Duchy and consists of 60 members who are elected by the people for five years by proportional representation. The Chamber building is located next to the Grand Ducal Palace in Luxembourg City . A unicameral system applies in Luxembourg .

Constitutional role

The role of the Chamber is to make legislative proposals as part of the legislative process and to discuss them (as well as the government's legislative projects) in order to subsequently adopt or reject them. Both the government and any MP can propose new laws. Government proposals are called "Projet de loi", those of the MPs "Proposition de loi". After a proposal has been submitted, it is forwarded to the relevant parliamentary commission, where it is examined. Each legislative proposal must also be approved by the State Council. For some laws, the opinion of other bodies, such as professional chambers, must also be obtained. Finally, there can then be discussion and voting in the plenary session. In theory, every law has to be approved twice (a second time at least 3 months after the first vote), but the Chamber can dispense a second vote if the Council of State recognizes this. A law usually comes into force three days after the text is published in the “Mémorial”, a publication in which all legal texts are published.

In addition to its legislative role, the Chamber is responsible for overseeing the government. It oversees state finances, can investigate, put questions to ministers, bring them to justice in the Chamber, ask them to take certain actions and accuse ministers of abuse of office.

Debates are also held in Parliament on important general issues.

At the international level, the Chamber is responsible for the ratification of international agreements. An international agreement is only legally binding if the Chamber agrees. Contact with foreign countries is also partly the responsibility of the Chamber; she is also represented on many international parliamentary committees.

Chamber elections

Electoral districts: green: north, blue: center, red: south, yellow: east

According to the Constitution, elections in Luxembourg are free, general and secret. The Chamber has been made up of 60 members since 1989, each of whom is directly elected by the people for a legislative period of five years.

The constitution prescribes proportional representation and defines the division of the country into the four electoral districts south, center, north and east. The distribution of the total of 60 seats to the electoral districts is determined by a law that must be adopted by the Chamber with a two-thirds majority. Since 1989 the number of MPs in the electoral districts has been set as follows: South 23, Center 21, North 9, East 7. The seats are distributed without a threshold using the D'Hondt procedure . The voters have as many votes as there are representatives to be elected in the constituency. The voter can either tick a list, then each candidate on this list receives one vote, or the number of votes he is entitled to, in principle, arbitrarily distribute (also to applicants from different lists). However, he can give a candidate a maximum of two votes. Within the list, the seats will be filled with the strongest applicants.

Since 1919, voting has been compulsory for all citizens of age and for everyone who is registered on the Luxembourg electoral roll and who is resident in Luxembourg. The law even provides for fines and imprisonment, which is not applied.

The Grand Duke gives the mandate to form a government, taking into account the political majority in the Chamber. Usually the top candidate of the strongest party is commissioned, other majorities emerge, but another person can also be commissioned (as after the 2013 chamber election , after which the mandate to form a government went to the chairman of the third-strongest party because he was composed of three parties, that could form the majority).

Membership in the government is incompatible with a mandate. For MPs who join the government, the next most elected candidates of their party in the respective constituency move up. This also applies if MPs lose their mandate for any other reason.

Results of the elections since 1945

year	CSV	DP	LSAP	Gréng	ADR	Pirate	Lénk	KPL	SDP	Other
2018	28.9	17.5	16.8	15.1	08.6	6.6	5.0	01.1	-	0.4
2013	34.1	19.1	19.2	10.3	06.8	3.0	4.7	01.4	-	1.7
2009	38.0	15.0	21.6	11.7	08.1	-	3.3	01.5	-	0.8
2004	36.1	16.1	23.4	11.6	10.0	-	1.9	00.9	-	0.1
1999	30.1	22.4	22.3	09.1	11.3	-	a3.3 a	a	-	1.6
1994	30.3	19.3	25.4	09.9	09.0	-	b0.7 b	01.7	-	3.7
1989	32.4	17.2	26.2	c07.4 c	d07.9 d	-	-	04.4	-	3.4
1984	36.7	20.4	31.8	e04.2 e	-	-	-	04.4	-	-
1979	36.4	21.9	22.5	-	-	-	-	04.9	06.4	7.9
1974	29.9	23.3	27.0	-	-	-	-	08.8	10.1	1.0
1968	37.5	18.0	31.0	-	-	-	-	13.1	-	-
1964	35.7	12.2	35.9	-	-	-	-	10.4	-	5.8
1959	38.9	20.3	33.0	-	-	-	-	07.2	-	-
1954	45.2	f12.3 f	32.8	-	-	-	-	07.3	-	-
1951 g	42.1	f20.9 f	33.8	-	-	-	-	03.2	-	-
1948 h	36.3	f11.6 f	37.8	-	-	-	-	14.3	-	-
1945	44.7	f18.0 f	23.4	-	-	-	-	11.1	-	2.9

^a Déi Lénk as a joint list of Néi Lénk and KPL

^b Néi Lenk

^c GLEI and GAP each 3.7%

^d Under the name Action Committee 5/6 Pension for Everyone

^e Cap

^f Groupement patriotique et démocratique

^G Partial elections in the south and east

^H Partial elections in the center and north

Factions

Parties with at least five MPs can form a parliamentary group. They are given more funds for their work. The chairman of a parliamentary group (parliamentary group president) is also involved through the “Conference of Presidents” in the appointment of the Chamber's office and the determination of the procedure (agenda) of the chamber meetings.

functionality

Chamber logo

Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker in the Chamber, 2009

Juncker-Asselborn II government in the Chamber, 2009

The functioning of the Chamber is determined by the dispositions laid down by the constitution and the electoral law and by its own rules of procedure ( Règlement intérieur ). The period of a year in which the Chamber meets is called an ordinary session ( session ordinaire ), which according to the constitution opens on the 2nd Tuesday of October at 3 p.m.

Chamber President

The task of the President of the Chamber is to represent the Chamber externally, to ensure order and compliance with the rules during the sessions, to grant speaking time and to announce the result of votes and decisions of the Chamber. The President is represented by the Vice-President of the Chamber or, if the latter is absent, by the oldest member of parliament ("doyen") . The President of the Chamber is often referred to as the “First Citizen of Luxembourg”. Fernand Etgen (DP) has been President since December 2018 .

Presidents of Parliament since 1945

Beginning of the term of office	Term expires	Surname	Life dates
1945	March 5, 1959	Émile Reuter	1874-1973
March 5, 1959	July 21, 1964	Joseph Bech	1887-1975
July 21, 1964	October 10, 1967	Victor Bodson	1902-1984
October 10, 1967	5th February 1969	Romain Fandel	1922-1985
5th February 1969	June 27, 1974	Pierre Grégoire	1907-1991
June 27, 1974	October 14, 1975	Antoine Wehenkel	1907-1992
October 14, 1975	October 9, 1979	René Van den Bulcke	1913-1987
October 9, 1979	July 18, 1989	Léon Bollendorff	1915-2011
July 18, 1989	January 26, 1995	Erna Hennicot-Schoepges	* 1941
January 31, 1995	July 13, 2004	Jean Spautz	* 1930
July 13, 2004	July 30, 2004	Jean Asselborn	* 1949
August 3, 2004	July 28, 2009	Lucien Weiler	* 1951
July 28, 2009	5th December 2013	Laurent Mosar	* 1958
5th December 2013	5th December 2018	Mars Di Bartolomeo	* 1952
5th December 2018	officiating	Fernand Etgen	* 1957

Chamber office

At the beginning of a legislative period, the Chamber appoints the Chamber Office in its plenary session. It consists of a President, 3 Vice-Presidents and a maximum of 7 members. The office is responsible for international affairs as well as for the administrative work of the Chamber. The office takes care of the financial and organizational questions of the MPs, of the staff employed in the Chamber, etc. An exception is the agenda of the plenary sessions, which is determined by the Conference of Presidents.

Conference of Presidents

The conference is composed of the President of the Chamber and the Presidents of the various political groups. Their most important task is to set the course of the meetings and to give their consent to those legislative projects for which the law provides for them.

Committees

Committees are used to carry out parliamentary work more efficiently. They prepare the meetings of the Chamber by discussing the legislative projects and proposals as well as amendments and motions in them. The individual parties are represented in the individual commissions in proportion to their seats. There are standing committees ( commissions permanentes ) as well as statutory committees ( commissions réglementaires ). The MPs also have the option of convening a committee of inquiry, for example to clear up government affairs, or to set up special committees on a temporary basis.

composition

The table shows the composition of the Chamber since the parliamentary elections on October 20, 2013 .

The parties marked with an asterisk (*) form the Bettel-Schneider government .

Political party		Seats	percent	Alignment	European party
	Chrëschtlech Sozial Vollekspartei , CSV	23	33.7	Christian democracy , conservatism , Christian social	EPP
	Lëtzebuerger Sozialistesch Aarbechterpartei , LSAP *	13	20.3	Social democracy	SPE
	Democratic Party , DP *	13	18.3	liberalism	ALDE
	Déi Gréng *	6th	10.1	Green politics	EGP
	Alternatively, the Democratic Reform Party , ADR	3	6.6	National conservatism	AECR
	Déi Lénk	2	4.9	Left politics , democratic socialism	Tbsp
total		60

Parliament television

The Luxembourg parliamentary television is Chamber TV , which is operated by the Chambre des Députés. The television station began broadcasting on December 4, 2001 and can be received nationwide via cable and satellite .

The public sessions are all broadcast live. In addition to these broadcasts, reports on the work of the Chamber and debates are shown.

history

According to Article 13 of the German Federal Act , Luxembourg had also committed itself to setting up a “land-based constitution” and a parliament. The Grand Duke did not fulfill this obligation until 1841. The assembly of estates ("Assemblée des Etats") was set up as parliament. However, according to the tradition of the constitutions in the Vormärz, the competencies were low. The MPs were directly elected. As constituencies served cantons . There was a census vote . The number of MPs was 32.

Parliament (Chamber) 1841

Canton	Residents	MPs
Canton of Capellen	13,481	3
Canton of Clervaux	11,642	2
Canton Diekirch	17,434	3
Canton of Echternach	12,979	2
Canton of Esch an der Alzette	15,327	3
Canton of Grevenmacher	14.214	3
Canton of Luxembourg	28,477	6th
Canton of Mersch	13,689	3
Canton of Redingen	13,810	3
Canton of Remich	14,830	3
Canton of Wiltz	13,847	3

The March Revolution also led to democratic reforms in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. In 1848 the Grand Duke had to approve a constitutional amendment that replaced the Assembly of Estates with a freely elected Chamber of Deputies ("Chambre des Députés"). The powers of the parliament have also been massively expanded. Budget law , legislative initiatives and the immunity of members of parliament were established.

After the victory of the reaction , the reforms were reversed and in 1856 the old assembly of estates was reintroduced. However, the right to vote was adapted to developments in the empire as early as 1868. The parliament was now called the Chamber of Deputies again and was given more powers. A census suffrage applied to the election .

According to the electoral law of June 22, 1901, the Chamber of Representatives consisted of 48 members. The members of parliament were directly elected by the cantons for six years. Half of the MPs were re-elected every three years. The census was a tax payment of 10 francs. Active voting rights existed from the age of 24.

From 1919 the choice of the Chambre des Députés corresponded to today's democratic ideas. In addition to general, free and equal elections, women's suffrage was introduced.

See also

• State Council

literature

• Frank Reimen, Jeannot Krecké : The Chamber of Deputies. Theory and Practice of Parliamentary Control. promoculture: 1st edition 1999. ISBN 2-87974-034-7 .
• Michael Schroen: Legislation in the Luxembourg political system . In: Wolfgang Ismayr (Ed.): Legislation in Western Europe. EU countries and the European Union . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2008, pp. 349–381.

Web links

• Website of the Chambre des Députés
• Luxembourg Ministries etc. (rulers.org)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Electoral Law (PDF; 823 kB)
2. ↑ Chambre des Députés: Règlement de la Chambre des Députés. (pdf) In: http://www.chd.lu . January 1, 2017, accessed on September 11, 2017 (French). 
3. ^ Constitution. Retrieved September 11, 2017 . 
4. ^ Regulations for the election of the members of the estates of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg of October 16, 1841

Coordinates: 49 ° 36 ′ 38.5 ″  N , 6 ° 7 ′ 59 ″  E