Re: OT: For information only !

Joe wrote:

> John Cowan wrote:
>
>> Nik Taylor scripsit:
>>
>>
>>
>>> I think the difference is largely historic.  Parliaments were
>>> created by
>>> already-established governments, generally monarchies, whereas
>>> congresses were created by states coming together, either permanently,
>>> as in the case of the US Congress, or temporarily, as in teh
>>> Congress of
>>> Vienna.
>>>
That doesn't work in the case of Australia.

>> I take the difference to be in whether there is a separate executive
>> branch.  Parliamentary systems choose the executive; congressional
>> systems don't.  ("Executive" here excludes any purely figurehead
>> head-of-state.)
>>
>>
>
> But as I've said already, France doesn't obey this rule.  The US is the
> only state that (to my knowledge) claims to have a 'Congress' rather
> than a Parliament.  I think Nik's right in that the difference is purely
> historical.  I'd assume that the US Congress was named after the
> Continental Congresses  - Which evolved from a coming together of heads
> of states, to an appointed leigslative body, again representing the
> states(Under the Articles of Confederation), to a democratic legislative
> body(under the US constitution).  But, it's still a Parliament.

So basically either some parliaments are called Congress and there's no
way optimal way to say that one system has separation of executive from
legislature, or some congresses are called Parliament, but the
difference is that congresses are exclusively legislature, but
parliaments contain both the legislature and the executive?

dictionary.com describes the difference as parliaments are the supreme
legislature whereas congresses are just legislatures.

Wikipedia.org seems to agree with me and John:

    A congress is different from a parliament in that legislative
    initiative is vested into it. In a congressional system the
    executive and legislative branches of government are clearly
    differentiated. The office as Head of State (president) and Head of
    Government (prime minister) are typically merged, and the members of
    cabinet are only rarely taken from the congress.
     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress>

It also stresses that the Head of Government in a Parliamentary system
needs to maintain support of the legislature (at least if he wants to be
able to do anything), but that's not the case in Congressional systems.

However, it seems to exaggerate the difference between a congressional
system and a parliamentry one, using England's Parliament vs the US's
Congress as the sources of  its distinctions, and saying things like
parliamentry sysetms are typically able to be dissolved early whereas
congressional systems can't be.

Furthermore, on some pages [you must realise that there isn't a single
editorial body of Wikipedia, so it isn't always coherent], it creates
the additional distinction of a Semi-Presidential system and describes
the French Fifth Republic as one of these.

I would agree with the Wikipedia on this one. If there is a clear and
total division between Executive and Legislature as in the US, you have
a congress (which may be called the Congress, the Parliament or the
Meeting of the Tribesmen); if there is a clear and total mixing of the
two as in Oz or the UK, you have a parliament (which may be called the
Congress, the Parliament or the Meeting of the Villiagepeople). If you
have a partial division, well, it could go either way... mostly
together? Parliament. Mostly apart? Congress. Split between? If I gave
you a two lines, both close enough to equal length that you couldn't
distinguish between them and asked you which was longer (and gave you no
option to say neither), would you chose the second one?

If you disagree with me, I'm quite happy to agree to disagree. I think
it's probably high time to put this entire thread to bed.

--
Tristan.