Italian Parliament

The Italian Parliament (Italian: Parlamento italiano) is the national parliament of the Italian Republic. It is the representative body of Italian citizens and is the successor to the Parliament of the Kingdom of Sardinia (1848–1861), the Parliament of the Kingdom of Italy (1861–1943), the transitional National Council (1945–1946) and the Constituent Assembly (1946–1948). It is a bicameral legislature with 600 elected members and a small number of unelected members (senatori a vita). The Italian Parliament is composed of the Chamber of Deputies (with 400 members or deputati elected on a national basis), as well as the Senate of the Republic (with 200 members or senatori elected on a regional basis, plus a small number of senators for life or senatori a vita, either appointed by the President of the Republic or former Presidents themselves, ex officio).

The two Houses are independent from one another and never meet jointly except under circumstances specified by the Constitution of Italy. By the Constitution, the two houses of the Italian Parliament possess the same powers, unlike in most parliamentary systems. Perfect bicameralism has been codified in its current form since the adoption of the Albertine Statute, and resurged after the overthrow of the fascist dictatorship of the 1920s and 1930s. No distinction is made between deputies and senators, notwithstanding that a member of parliament cannot be at the same time both a senator and a deputy; regarding presidents and vice-presidents, the precedence is given to the older one.

The number of deputies and senators was fixed by a constitutional amendment in 1963: in its original text, the Constitution provided for a variable number of Members of Parliament depending on the population. From 1963 to 2022, the Chamber of Deputies had 630 members, while the Senate had 315 elected members. Following the 2020 Italian constitutional referendum, the number of MPs in the Parliament has been reduced from 630 to 400 in the Chamber of Deputies and from 315 to 200 in the Senate. The proposed changes were approved, with 69.96% voting in favour. The reduction of the number of MPs came to fruition with the following Legislature XIX of Italy.

In addition to the 200 elected members, the Senate, as per article 59 of the Constitution of the Italian Republic, also comprises a small number of senators for life. These can be differentiated into:

The voting age mandated for both houses is the age of majority: any Italian citizen who is eighteen or older can vote. But the two houses have a different age of candidacy: deputies are required to be twenty-five or older, while elected senators must be forty or older. No explicit age limit is required to be appointed senator for life (but Presidents of the Republic must be 50 or older).

The main prerogative of Parliament is the exercise of the legislative power, that is the power to enact laws. For a bill to become law, it must receive the support of both houses independently in the same text. A bill is first introduced in one of the houses, amended, and then approved or rejected: if approved, it is passed to the other house, which can amend it before approving or rejecting it. If approved without amendments, the bill is then promulgated by the President of the Republic and becomes law. If approved with amendments, it goes back to the other house. The process continues until the bill is approved in the same text by both houses (in which case it becomes law after promulgation) or is rejected by one house.

The Council of Ministers, which is led by the President of the Council of Ministers and is the national executive of Italy, needs to have the confidence of both houses in order to exercise its power fully. It must receive a vote of confidence by both houses before being officially in power, and Parliament can cast a motion of no confidence at any moment, which forces the President of the Council of Ministers and his/her Cabinet to resign. The President of the Republic can dissolve one or both houses, and new elections are held if a new Prime Minister is unable to receive the support of both houses.

The process by which the Italian Parliament makes ordinary laws, the iter legis ordinario, is as follows: