[EM] Fixed Terms

[Herman Beun]

As a Dutchman, I should obviouslyy comment on this:

On 24 Sep 99, at 15:28, Markus Schulze wrote:

> I observed that the Swedish option is also used for the upper house
> (Eerste Kamer) of the Netherlands. Article 64 of the 1983
> constitution says: "De zittingsduur van een na ontbinding
> optredende Eerste Kamer eindigt op het tijdstip waarop de
> zittingsduur van de ontbonden kamer zou zijn geeindigd." ("The
> duration of an upper house that meets following a dissolution
> shall end at the time at which the duration of the dissolved house
> would have ended.") But I don't remember that the Eerste Kamer has
> ever been dissolved. 

That's correct, but the motivation behind this rule (and the practice) 
is slightly different than for the Swedish option. The point is that the
Eerste Kamer is elected indirectly, i.e. is elected by the (directly 
elected) members of the Provincial States (the Provincial 
parliaments), which do have fixed terms. Therefore, dissolving the 
Eerste Kamer does not make much sense, since the new 
members are elected by the same Provincial State members, who 
always vote for their own party's candidates.

Moreover, the Eerste Kamer, like most other country's Upper 
Houses, is not the most important political Chamber and unlikely 
to get into serious conflict with the government. That too makes 
dissolution less likely.

Actually, I think our Eerste Kamer is pretty useless and should be 
abolished. Members do not work full time and meet only one day a 
week. It is not, as in federal states, a representation of local 
entities because there is no direct link between an Provincial 
States member's vote and a specific Eerste Kamer member -- all 
Provincial State members together are one single constituency. 
The Eerste Kamer is, according to their own definition, a "chambre 
de réflexion": they reconsider each new law on constitutionality 
(the Netherlands have no constitutional court) and quality. 

In my view, the Tweede Kamer (Lower House) can do that too, just 
like in Sweden and Denmark. But it is impossible to abolish the 
Eerste Kamer: each constitutional change requires a 2/3 majority 
in both Houses... Effectively, this Chamber is the main cause of 
the Netherlands' constitutional backwardness. Last May, one of 
their members blocked even the introduction of the referendum 
(popular veto), although (as a compromise to his own conservative 
party) the thresholds in the proposal were so high that having a 
referendum would have become virtually impossible anyway.

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Herman Beun              Arnhem, Gelderland, Nederland, EU 
HermanB at bigfoot.com       http://www.bigfoot.com/~HermanB/
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Opschudding in D66: http://welcome.to/opschudding
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Representative democracy is a contradiction in 4 year terms
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