How Is the National Parliament Made Up?

Part VI of the Constitution sets out the National Government. It begins with a statement of structure that is worth reading closely.

Section 99 — the three arms

Subject to and in accordance with the Constitution, the power, authority and jurisdiction of the People shall be exercised by the National Government, which consists of three principal arms:

1. the National Parliament — an elective legislature with, subject to the Constitutional Laws, unlimited powers of law-making;
2. the National Executive; and
3. the National Judicial System, consisting of a Supreme Court of Justice and a National Court of Justice of unlimited jurisdiction, and other courts.

Section 99(3): in principle, the respective powers and functions of the three arms shall be kept separate from each other. Section 99(4) then adds that subsection (2) is descriptive only and is non-justiciable — so section 99 states the architecture rather than creating a free-standing separation-of-powers cause of action.

Section 100 — the legislative power

• (1) Subject to the Constitution, the legislative power of the People is vested in the National Parliament.
• (2) That does not prevent a law conferring legislative powers or functions on another authority — including further powers of delegation and subdelegation. This is the basis of regulations, rules and by-laws.
• (3) Nothing in any Constitutional Law enables the Parliament to transfer permanently, or divest itself of, legislative power.

Subsection (3) is a genuine limit. Parliament may delegate; it may not give the power away.

Section 101 — membership

Other rules in section 101:

• An Organic Law shall provide for the number of open and provincial electorates.
• No member may represent two or more electorates at the same time (s 101(3)).
• The precise number of open electorates and their boundaries is determined from time to time under section 125.
• Any alteration to the number of electorates or to boundaries takes effect for the next general election and succeeding elections, not the current Parliament.

Open and provincial electorates

Each province forms a provincial electorate; open electorates are the smaller districts within them. Under section 4(5), the National Capital District is taken into account as if it were a province in calculating the number of provincial electorates.

The member elected for a provincial electorate is, under the Organic Law on Provincial Governments and Local-level Governments, the Governor of that province — the link between the National Parliament and provincial government.

Section 101(1)(d) — women’s electorates

Paragraph (d) provides for members elected from single-member women’s electorates as defined under an Organic Law. It stands alongside section 55(2), which expressly permits laws for the special benefit, welfare, protection or advancement of females, and National Goal 2, which calls for equal participation by women citizens in all political, economic, social and religious activities.

Section 102 — nominated members

The Parliament may from time to time, by a two-thirds absolute majority vote, appoint a person (other than a member) to be a nominated member. There may be no more than three at any time. A nominated member is a full member for constitutional purposes, and is within the Leadership Code.

A person dismissed from office for misconduct in office is ineligible for appointment as a nominated member for three years (section 31(1)(b)).