The Congress of Deputies (Spanish: Congreso de los Diputados) is the lower house of the Cortes Generales, Spain's legislative branch, the upper house being the Senate. The Congress meets in the Palace of the Parliament (Palacio de las Cortes) in Madrid.
Congress has 350 members elected from fifty-two constituencies (the fifty provinces and two autonomous cities) using closed list D'Hondt proportional representation. Deputies serve four-year terms. The presiding officer and speaker is the President of the Congress of Deputies, who is elected by the members at the first sitting of Congress after an election.
The two principle actors in Congress are parliamentary groups and parliamentary committees (Spanish: comissiones). All MPs are required to be members of a parliamentary group,[1] the institutionalised form of political parties. Groups act with one voice represented by their spokesperson. In other words the Spanish Parliament is a parliament of groups, not individual MPs who are constrained to act only as part of the group.[2][3] MPs can only act autonomously when submitting oral or written questions.[4]
As a result of the 2019 general election, there were 168 female deputies or 48% of all members, making Spain the European country with the highest percentage of women in parliament, surpassing Sweden and Finland.[5]
Section 68.1 of the Spanish Constitution establishes that the Congress of Deputies must be composed of at least 300, and no more than 400 deputies. At present, the house has 350 deputies which is determined by the 1985 Electoral Act.
The Spanish Constitution establishes that the deputies are chosen by universal, free, equal, direct, and secret suffrage. The election is held every four years or earlier in case of snap election. The members of the Congress are elected by proportional representation with closed lists in each constituency.
There are 52 constituencies for the Congress of Deputies corresponding to the 50 provinces of Spain and two autonomous cities (Ceuta and Melilla).[6] According to Spanish electoral law, the number of seats in each constituency can change in each election and it is specified when writs of election are issued.[7] Each province is guaranteed a minimum allocation of two seats, and one seat each for Ceuta and Melilla for a total of 102 seats. The remaining 248 seats are allocated proportionally according to population using the Hare quota.[8]
After the General Election, seats are assigned to the electoral lists in each constituency separately, using the D'Hondt method; parties receive seats in approximate proportion to the number of votes each received in the constituency. A strictly proportional system would result in fractional seats; the D'Hondt method resolves this by favoring parties receiving larger votes.
For provinces that elect at least 24 deputies, the 1985 Electoral Act establishes a 3% minimum valid votes by constituency requirement (blank votes count towards the total votes, but invalid ballots do not count) for a party to participate in the seat distribution for a constituency. At present, this condition applies only to Madrid and Barcelona.
In March 2011, the Electoral Act was modified to require parties that are not represented either in Congress or in the Senate to collect signatures to support their candidacy to be able to run in the election. One-tenth of a percent of those registered to vote in a constituency are required to be on the ballot and each citizen can sign only once for a party candidacy. The Electoral Board establishes the regulations for collection of signatures.
The deputies' term of office finishes four years after their election or when the Cortes are dissolved, which can take place jointly or separately with the dissolution of the Senate. Only the Monarch can dissolve Parliament on the request of the President of the Government after the deliberation of the Council of Ministers. The dissolution of the Cortes also takes place if there is a failed legislature or two months after a failed investiture session, in this case the Sovereign dissolves the house with the countersign of the President of the Congress of Deputies. During their mandate, the deputies have some guarantees and privileges to carry their responsibilities out according to Section 97 of the Spanish Constitution.
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Exercising the autonomy recognised by the Constitution to the Congress of Deputies, the house is regulated by some internal rules established by itself in 1982 and it configures different government bodies to carry the pertinent competencies out.
The governing bodies of the Congress of Deputies are the bodies which under their authority the House is manage. Those bodies are the President, the Bureau and the Board of Spokespersons.[9]
The President of the Congress of Deputies is the highest authority and it represents the House and it is, de facto, the whole parliament leader. As head of the Congress, it also chairs the Bureau, the Board of Spokespersons and the Permanent Deputation, and is the maximum responsible authority of the Congress's Police.[10]
The Bureau of the Congress of Deputies is the collective body that represents the House and manages the day-to-day of the Chamber, preparing the budget and making all the necessary decisions to allow the proper functioning of the functions of the Congress.[11]
The Board of Spokespersons of the Congress of Deputies is the collective body formed by representatives of the parliamentary groups and normally, government representatives, that establishes the agenda of the House.[12]
The working bodies of the Congress of Deputies are the Plenary, the Committees, the Permanent Deputation and the Parliamentary Groups.[13]
The Plenary is the central body of the Congress of Deputies which allows the house for exercising their choices. It is the sitting of all the members of the Parliament when half plus one of its members are attending the house. This body represents the unity of the house and it works through the plenary sessions which can be ordinary or extraordinary.
The ordinary sessions take place during the two meeting terms: September to December and February to June. The extraordinary sessions are convened at the request of the Prime Minister of Spain, the Permanent Council or the absolute majority of the house. In this kind of session a particular agenda is presented and the session ends when all items have been discussed.
The Committees are the basic working bodies of the Congress designed to facilitate the work of the house. The committees have the same powers as the Plenary: to legislate by delegation of the plenary or at the request of the Bureau, and to check the Government by requesting information of the Administration or by requesting the appearance of any member of the Government or Administration.
There are two types of committees: standing and non-standing. The standing committees are defined by the Congress's standing orders[14] and non-standing committees, created by the Plenary. The standing committees examine bills and make amendments. The Plenary of the Congress can confer them full legislative power in relation to a matter, so they can approve or reject any bill. There are 23 permanent (standing) legislative committees and 8 permanent (standing) non-legislative committees which have responsibilities for House administration. The Plenary can create additional non-legislative committees at the beginning of each legislature. The non-standing committees are created with a specific purpose and their themes and duration are determined by the Plenary.
The members of the committees are chosen by the Parliamentary Groups with the number of members proportional to the number of seats in the House, which means they are not effective checks on the Government, when the party in office has a parliamentary majority.[15] Once the committees are created they must elect in their first meeting the bureau of the committee, composed of a chair, two deputy chairs and two secretaries. In practice, the largest party always enjoys a clear over-representation in the distribution of chairpersons.[15]
Subcommittees can also be created by the Plenary at the request of the committees. There are two types of subcommittees, the ordinary subcommittees the purpose of which is to discuss and report on a specific issue and the reporting subcommittees, the purpose of which is to write a draft bill to be discussed in the committee. The members of the subcommittees are designated by the committee.
The Permanent Deputation is a body created in order to have a permanent constituted legislative power. It is responsible for safeguarding the powers of the house between the legislative sessions (January, July and August) or when their term has finished because of termination or dissolution. In these three cases, the Permanent Deputation is a temporary extension of the house. The Permanent Deputation is presided by the President of the Congress. It is composed of a proportional number of deputies depending on the numerical importance of the different Parliamentary Groups.
All members of the house are assigned to a Parliamentary Groups reflecting their party affiliation or ideology. The formation of the parliamentary groups takes place at the beginning of each legislature. The deputies (members) who cannot satisfy the rules for forming a group, are placed together in their own group (called the Mixed Group) so that they can still participate in the functions of Parliament.
The XV legislature of Spain started on 17 August 2023 when the Cortes Generales were constituted, once the 2023 general election was held.
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The building, Palacio de las Cortes, has a neoclassical style. It was designed by Narciso Pascual Colomer, and built between 1843 and 1850. It sits by the Carrera de San Jerónimo, in Madrid. The relief on the facade by sculptor Ponciano Ponzano centers on a sculpture of Spain embracing the constitutional state, represented by a woman with her arm around a young girl. Surrounding the pair are figures that represent in allegorical form Justice and Peace, Science, Agriculture, Fine Arts, Navigation, Industry, Commerce and so on. Ponzano also executed two bronze lions for the building's access stairway in a more realistic manner.[17]
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