Re: OT: For information only !

Christophe Grandsire wrote:

> En réponse à Tristan Mc Leay :
>
>
>> No... the Congress is a congress. There's two distinct systems: the
>> Parliamentary system, which has parliaments, as used by Britain and most
>> Commonwealth countries, and the Presedential system, which has
>> congresses as used by America and various other countries... I think the
>> difference is that the executive is kept separate from the legislature
>> in one and mixed in with the other, but it could be that I'm focussing
>> on the wrong distinction...
>
>
> Well, as Joe said, France is a presidential system and has a
> parliament. My understanding is that "congress" and "parliament" are
> just two different words for the same thing: "a legislative body
> composed of two houses". Unless someone can prove me that the American
> Congress is not composed of a Senate and a House of Representatives
> (as I've been taught), I will consider those two terms as referring to
> the same thing. It's not the first time Americans feel the way to name
> things differently from other people :) .

It's not Bicamerality that counts.  Few people would deny the
parliament-hood of the New Zealand House of Representatives, for
instance.  I'd say the definition of a Parliament is simply a
Legislative Assembly.  Elections of some kind are generally taken for
the Lower House, and maybe for the Upper House, but democracy in both
the electorate and the candidacy vary.

> _______________________________________________________________________
> En réponse à Tristan Mc Leay :
>
>
>> France is freaky. They have a Prime Minister and a President. I don't
>> think the French planned on making sense in the first place.
>
>
> Actually, the French system makes so much sense that it's far from the
> only country having such a system. Like parliamentary systems like the
> British one, France has separate heads of state and government. It
> just happens that our head of state is a president, like in Germany
> and Italy for instance. The only difference with Germany and Italy
> being that our head of state is elected directly by the people rather
> than indirectly by the parliament, and has actual executive powers
> (which go in line with being elected directly. One wouldn't waste a
> direct election for a figurehead). Note that before WW2, the French
> system was indistinguishable from the German or Italian one.

Of course, Ireland is an example of a Parliamentary system with a
directly elected President - where the Taoiseach(Prime Minister) leads
the Executive.

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