Speaker

As Speaker ( German speaker ) is in many English-speaking called a legislative committee chairman areas, mostly the House of Representatives called.

United Kingdom

In the UK , the Speaker , the chairman of the lower house ( House of Commons ) . The speaker is newly appointed by each newly elected parliament and then remains in office for all sessions of the parliamentary term. The speaker sits on a throne-like seat above the MP . In front of him lies the mace , a gilded scepter , as a sign of his official dignity.

The speaker always behaves neutrally and only speaks when he has something to say about the business-like course of the meetings, such as calling the politicians present to order in the case of riots in the parliamentary hall, see naming (parliamentary procedure) . If the speaker is unable to attend, the meeting is chaired by one of his three deputies, the Chairman of Ways and Means or one of his two deputies. The office of the speaker can be roughly compared with the office of the President of the Bundestag .

Sir Thomas Hungerford was the first to hold the title of Mr. Speaker in 1377. The office itself has existed since 1258, when Peter de Montfort prevailed in the Mad Parliament ,which metin Oxford . The office was called parlor or prolocutor . One of the speaker's tasksat the time was to be able to avoid addressing the other side directly through him. In this way, honorary trades ( duels ) could be avoided. Even today, parliamentariansonlyaddress each otherindirectlyvia the speaker .

In general elections, there are traditionally no opposing candidates against an incumbent speaker in his constituency. However, this unwritten rule is not followed by all political parties. For example, candidates from the Green Party and UKIP ran against the then Speaker John Bercow (held office from 2009 to 2019). Many voters in the respective Speaker constituency also feel that this tradition has robbed them of their right to vote.

On June 22, 2009, the Conservative John Bercow was elected speaker as the successor to the resigned Labor MP Michael Martin . In 2010 he was re-elected and on May 18, 2015 he was re-elected with no votes against. In connection with the turbulent Brexit debates and thanks to Bercow's extroverted meeting, he and with it the office of speaker and its political significance became known worldwide. On October 31, 2019, he left office at his own request.

On November 4, 2019, Bercows deputy Lindsay Hoyle was elected as the new speaker.

Since 2006, the House of Lords select ( House of Lords ) a Speaker, the Lord Speaker is called. Previously, the respective Lord Chancellor had always performed ex officio the duties of a Speaker of the House of Lords.

United States

The seal of the Speaker of the House

In the United States, the Chairman (Speaker) of the House of Representatives officially bears the title of Speaker ( Speaker of the House ) . The office of speaker is defined by the United States Constitution , which came into force in 1789. The speaker is elected by the House of Representatives and is its highest-ranking representative. Although not required by the constitution, for practical reasons the speaker has always been a member of the majority party and thus held the highest rank within the faction of his party. The speaker usually does not chair the debates directly, but delegates this task to other members of parliament. Since the speaker is also one of 435 regularly elected MPs, he has to represent an electoral district . If the speaker belongs to a different party than the president , he can de facto take on the role of opposition leader .

Also in the parliaments of the US states the chairmen of the lower house are called speakers . Depending on the state, the chambers of parliament are called House of Representatives or State Assembly . Accordingly, the chairman is referred to as the Speaker of the House or Speaker of the Assembly . As at the federal level, it is usually a member of the majority party. If the speaker is not a member of the governor's party , he can also de facto take on the role of opposition leader.

Speakers at both federal and state level are usually addressed as Mister Speaker or Madam Speaker .

New Zealand

The House of Representatives has existed in New Zealand since 1852, but the role of speaker was not established until 1856, based on the British model. The first speaker at the time was Charles Clifford , who was only 41 years old . He is considered to be the youngest speaker New Zealand has ever had.

Web links

The Speaker . parliament.uk,accessed March 21, 2018.

Individual evidence

^ ^A ^b Office and Role of Speaker . parliament.uk , accessed March 21, 2018 .
↑ Office and role of the Deputy Speaker on the UK Parliament's website, accessed April 3, 2019.
^ Katie Wright, Ella Wills: General election 2019: The town that won't get a choice. BBC News, November 10, 2019, accessed November 10, 2019 .
^ Rowena Mason : John Bercow re-elected as Speaker . The Guardian , May 18, 2015, accessed July 9, 2016 .
^ Biographies of Former and Current Speakers of the New Zealand House of Representatives . (PDF 294 kB) New Zealand Parliament , accessed on March 21, 2018 .

[UK_Office_and_Role_of_Speaker-1] A ^b Office and Role of Speaker . parliament.uk , accessed March 21, 2018 .

[2] Office and role of the Deputy Speaker on the UK Parliament's website, accessed April 3, 2019.

[3] Katie Wright, Ella Wills: General election 2019: The town that won't get a choice. BBC News, November 10, 2019, accessed November 10, 2019 .

[Guardian_2015_05_18-4] Rowena Mason : John Bercow re-elected as Speaker . The Guardian , May 18, 2015, accessed July 9, 2016 .

[NZP_Biographies_Speakers-5] Biographies of Former and Current Speakers of the New Zealand House of Representatives . (PDF 294 kB) New Zealand Parliament , accessed on March 21, 2018 .