Senate of the Republic (Italy)
The Senate of the Republic ( Senato della Repubblica, usually just called Senato ) is the smaller of the two Houses of Parliament of the Italian Republic. He is elected at the regional level and has the Italian bicameral same rights as the Camera dei deputati, the selected national Chamber of Deputies. A profound reform of the Italian Senate is planned for a long time.
The Italian Senate has its headquarters in the Palazzo Madama in Rome, the official residence of the President of the Senate is located in the adjacent Palazzo Giustiniani.
History
The Senato della Repubblica based on which came into force on 1 January 1948 the Constitution of Italy. Its predecessor was founded in the Piedmont-Sardinia in 1848 Senato del Regno ( d' Italia ), which was taken over in 1861 by the Italian Risorgimento nation-state and dissolved in 1946 with the abolition of the monarchy. The senators of the kingdom were not elected but appointed by the king for life.
1946 resulted in the Constituent Assembly the task of creating a successor for the former, unelected House of Lords. While it tended to make the new Senate to represent the regions, but the Italian nation-state had been established since 1861 as the central unit of the Napoleonic state model, which is why it largely broke new ground with decentralization and regionalization efforts. Against these efforts, there were also different resistances, which led to that envisaged by the Constitution of Italy regionalization was implemented only in the 1970s. Against this background, the Constituent Assembly was able to create in the area of legislative no real representation of the regions according to the pattern of different countries chambers federal states. The direct election of senators at the regional level and the absolute equality with the Chamber of Deputies had already led in the 1970s to calls for a differentiation of tasks and after a far-reaching limitation of the Senate on the representation of the regions. The fact that the Government of confidence of both chambers of parliament depends, became over time increasingly criticized, particularly in legislative periods in which there were different majorities in the two chambers of parliament. In 2014, the Renzi government presented a bill to reform the constitution, with the intention to make the Senate to no longer directly elected representation of the regions and municipalities.
Composition
The Senate consists of 315 senators, who are elected for five years. Each of the 20 regions represents a fixed number of senators, which varies depending on the population in the region. With two exceptions, provides at least seven senators each region. The Aosta Valley is only a Senator, the two Molise region. Six senators are elected by Italians abroad.
The Italian Constitution states that the Senators are elected by universal and direct suffrage by voters who have crossed the age of 25. For Senator any person who has attained the age of 40 years ( see Article 58).
Among the 315 senators senators still be added to life. Italian president following the end of their term of right senators for life, unless they renounce (Art. 59, 1). The incumbent President shall have the right to appoint five earned Italian citizens to senators for life. The Constitution recognizes this privilege to citizens, " the [ ... ] by the highest merits in the social, scientific, artistic and literary field in a special way to the fatherland be an ornament " (Art. 59, 2). Currently (April 2014) there is next to the former President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi four by Giorgio Napolitano senators for life. Napolitano was prior to his election as president senator for life, these items rests but during the presidency.
The two Italian chambers of parliament ( Chamber of Deputies and Senate) can also jointly days ( Parlamento in seduta comune ). This is done, among others, for the election of the president. Meeting venue in this case is the Palazzo Montecitorio.