An upper house, sometimes called a senate, is one of two chambers of a
bicameral legislature (or one of three chambers of a tricameral
legislature), the other chamber being the lower house. The house
formally designated as the upper house is usually smaller and often
has more restricted power than the lower house. Examples of upper
houses in countries include the United Kingdom's House of Lords,
India's Rajya Sabha, Russia's
Federation Council, Ireland's Seanad,
Malaysia's Dewan Negara, Germany's Bundesrat and the United States
A legislature composed of only one house (and which therefore has
neither an upper house nor a lower house) is described as unicameral.
1 Possible specific characteristics
2.1 Parliamentary systems
2.2 Presidential systems
3 Institutional structure
5 Titles of upper houses
5.1 Common terms
5.2 Unique titles
6 Notes and references
Possible specific characteristics
An upper house is usually different from the lower house in at least
one of the following respects:
In a parliamentary system, it often has much less power than the lower
house. Therefore, in certain countries the Upper House
votes on only limited legislative matters, such as constitutional
cannot initiate legislation (or cannot initiate legislation on money).
cannot vote a motion of no confidence against the government (or such
an act is much less common), while the lower house always can.
In a presidential system:
It may have equal or nearly equal power with the lower house.
It may have specific powers not granted to the lower house. For
It may give advice and consent to some executive decisions (e.g.
appointments of cabinet ministers, judges or ambassadors).
It may have the sole power to try impeachments against officials of
the executive, following enabling resolutions passed by the lower
It may have the sole power to ratify treaties.
In some countries, its members are not popularly elected; membership
may be indirect, hereditary or by appointment.
Its members may be elected with a different voting system than that
used to elect the lower house (for example, upper houses in Australia
and its states are usually elected by proportional representation,
whereas lower houses are not).
Less populated states, provinces, or administrative divisions may be
better represented in the upper house than in the lower house;
representation is not completely proportional to population (or not at
Members' terms may be longer than in the lower house and maybe for
Members may be elected in portions, for staggered terms, rather than
all at one time.
In some countries, the upper house cannot be dissolved at all, or can
be dissolved only in more limited circumstances than the lower house.
It typically has fewer members or seats than the lower house (though
notably not in the
United Kingdom parliament).
It has usually a higher age of candidacy than the lower house.
The French Senate, hosted in the Palais du Luxembourg
In parliamentary systems the upper house is frequently seen as an
advisory or "revising" chamber; for this reason, its powers of direct
action are often reduced in some way. Some or all of the following
restrictions are often placed on upper houses:
Lack of control over the executive branch. (On the other hand, in the
US and many other presidential systems, the
Senate or upper chamber
has more control over the composition of the Cabinet and the
administration generally, through its prerogative of confirming the
president's nominations to senior offices.)
No absolute veto of proposed legislation, though suspensive vetoes are
permitted in some states.
In countries where it can veto legislation (like the Netherlands), it
may not be able to amend the proposals.
A reduced or even absent role in initiating legislation.
No power to block supply, or budget measures (a rare example of a
Parliamentary upper house that does possess this power is the
Australian Senate, which notably exercised that power in 1975)
In parliamentary democracies and among European upper houses the
Senate is a notable exception to these general rules, in that
it has the same powers as its lower counterpart: any law can be
initiated in either house and must be approved in the same form by
both houses. Additionally, a Government must have the consent of both
to remain in office, a position which is known as "perfect
bicameralism" or "equal bicameralism".
The role of a revising chamber is to scrutinise legislation that may
have been drafted over-hastily in the lower house and to suggest
amendments that the lower house may nevertheless reject if it wishes
to. An example is the British House of Lords. Under the Parliament
Acts 1911 and 1949, the
House of Lords
House of Lords can no longer prevent the
passage of most bills, but it must be given an opportunity to debate
them and propose amendments, and can thereby delay the passage of a
bill with which it disagrees. Bills can only be delayed for up to one
year before the Commons can use the
Parliament Act, although economic
bills can only be delayed for one month. It is sometimes seen as
having a special role of safeguarding the uncodified Constitution of
United Kingdom and important civil liberties against
ill-considered change. The British
House of Lords
House of Lords has a number of ways
to block legislation and to reject it, however, the House of Commons
can eventually use the
Parliament Act to force something through. The
Commons will occasionally bargain and negotiate with the Lords such as
when the Labour Government of 1999 tried to expel all Hereditary Peers
from the Lords, and the Lords threatened to wreck the Government's
entire legislative agenda and to block every bill which was sent to
the chamber. This led to negotiations between Viscount Cranborne the
then Shadow Leader of the House, and the Labour Government which
resulted in the Weatherill Amendment to the
House of Lords
House of Lords Act 1999
which preserved 92 Hereditary Peers in the house. The
is not valid with all legislation and is a very rarely used backup
The chamber of the House of Lords, the UK's Upper House
Even without a veto, an upper house may defeat legislation. Its
opposition may give the lower chamber a chance to reconsider or even
abandon a controversial measure. It can also delay a bill so that it
does not fit within the legislative schedule, or until a general
election produces a new lower house that no longer wishes to proceed
with the bill.
Nevertheless, some states have long retained powerful upper houses.
For example, the consent of the upper house to legislation may be
necessary (though, as noted above, this seldom extends to budgetary
measures). Constitutional arrangements of states with powerful upper
houses usually include a means to resolve situations where the two
houses are at odds with each other.
In recent times, Parliamentary systems have tended to weaken the
powers of upper houses relative to their lower counterparts. Some
upper houses have been abolished completely (see below); others have
had their powers reduced by constitutional or legislative amendments.
Also, conventions often exist that the upper house ought not to
obstruct the business of government for frivolous or merely partisan
reasons. These conventions have tended to harden with a passage of
In presidential systems, the upper house is frequently given other
powers to compensate for its restrictions:
Executive appointments, to the cabinet and other offices, usually
require its approval.
It frequently has the sole authority to give consent to or denounce
There is a variety of ways an upper house's members are assembled: by
direct or indirect election, appointment, heredity, or a mixture of
German Bundesrat is composed of members of the cabinets of
the German states, in most cases the state premier and several
ministers; they are delegated and can be recalled anytime. In a very
similar way, the
Council of the European Union
Council of the European Union is composed of national
Many upper houses are not directly elected but appointed: either by
the head of government or in some other way. This is usually intended
to produce a house of experts or otherwise distinguished citizens, who
would not necessarily be returned in an election. For example, members
of the Canadian
Senate are appointed by the Governor General on the
advice of the Prime Minister.
In the past, some upper houses had seats that were hereditary, such as
in the British
House of Lords
House of Lords until 1999 and in the Japanese House of
Peers until it was abolished in 1947.
It is also common that the upper house consists of delegates chosen by
state governments or local officials. Members of the
Rajya Sabha in
India are nominated by various states and union territories, while 12
of them are nominated by the President of India. Similarly, at the
state level, one-third of the members of the
Vidhan Parishad are
nominated by local governments, one-third by sitting legislators, and
the rest are elected by select members of the electorate. The United
Senate was chosen by the State legislatures until the passage
of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913.
The upper house may be directly elected but in different proportions
to the lower house - for example, the
Australia and the
United States have a fixed number of elected members from each state,
regardless of the population.
Main article: List of abolished upper houses
Many jurisdictions, such as Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary,
Iceland, Iran, Mauritania, New Zealand, Peru, Sweden, Turkey,
Venezuela and many Indian states as well as Brazilian states and
Canadian provinces, once possessed upper houses but abolished them to
adopt unicameral systems. Newfoundland had a
Legislative Council prior
to joining Canada, as did
Ontario when it was Upper
Canada and Quebec
from 1791 (as Lower Canada) to 1968.
Nebraska is the only state in the
United States with a unicameral legislature, having abolished its
lower house in 1934.
The Australian state of
Queensland also once had an appointed
Legislative Council before abolishing it in 1922. All other Australian
states continue to have bicameral systems (the two territories have
always been unicameral).
Like Queensland, the German state of
Bavaria had an appointed upper
Senate of Bavaria, from 1946 to 1999.
Senate of the Philippines was abolished – and restored –
twice: from 1935 to 1945 when a unicameral National Assembly convened,
and from 1972 to 1987 when
Congress was closed, and later a new
constitution was approved instituting a unicameral Parliament. The
Senate was re-instituted with the restoration of a bicameral Congress
via a constitutional amendment in 1941, and via adoption of a new
constitution in 1987.
A previous government of Ireland (the 31st Dáil) promised a national
referendum on the abolition of its upper house, the
during the 24th
Seanad session. By a narrow margin, the Irish public
voted to retain it. Conservative-leaning
Fine Gael and Left-leaning
Sinn Féin both supported the abolition, while the centrist Fianna
Fáil was alone among major parties in supporting the retention of the
Titles of upper houses
Senate - by far the most common
Federal Council (Germany, Austria)
Council of States (Switzerland, India, Sudan)
First Chamber (Netherlands and formerly Sweden)
National Council – Slovenia
House of Peoples – Bosnia and Herzegovina
Protsaphea – Cambodia
Chambre des Pairs
Chambre des Pairs (Chamber of Peers) –
France under the Bourbon
Chamber of the Most Worthy Peers of the Kingdom (Câmara dos
Digníssimos Pares do Reino) - Kingdom of Portugal
Főrendiház (House of Magnates) in the former Kingdom of Hungary,
also called simply Felsőház (Upper House)
Rajya Sabha (Council of the States) and
Vidhan Parishad (Legislative
Council) – India
Regional Representative Council
Regional Representative Council (Dewan Perwakilan Daerah) –
House of Councillors
House of Councillors (Japanese: 参議院, translit. Sangiin) –
Dewan Negara (National Hall) – Malaysia
Federation Council - Russia
House of Elders – Republic of Somaliland. The term senate is derived
from Latin senex, meaning "old man".
National Council of Provinces
National Council of Provinces – South Africa
House of Lords
House of Lords – Seen in the United Kingdom, Ireland, as well as
formerly in German-speaking monarchies (Herrenhaus), e.g. the Austrian
House of Lords
House of Lords and the Prussian House of Lords
House of Federation
House of Federation – Ethiopia
House of Nationalities
House of Nationalities - Myanmar
Seanad Éireann – Ireland
Notes and references
Bicameralism (1997) by George Tsebelis
Parliament - Beta". www.amyothahluttaw.gov.mm. Archived
from the original on 2014-12-14. Retrieved 2016-03-02.
Upper houses of national legislatures
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Antigua and Barbuda
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Republic of the Congo
Trinidad and Tobago
Isle of Man
Northern Mariana Islands
Irish Free State
Kingdom of Serbia
List of abolished upper houses
List of legislatures by country
National lower houses
National bicameral legislatures
National unicameral legislatures
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