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Re: OT: For information only !

From:Joe <joe@...>
Date:Friday, June 18, 2004, 22:01
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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Stephen Mulraney <ataltanie@...>figureheads etc [WAS: Re: For information only !]