Chamber of Deputies

The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures.

Description

Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourbon Restoration, the July Monarchy, and the French Third Republic; the name is still informally used for the National Assembly under the nation's current Fifth Republic.

The term "chamber of deputies" is not widely used by

English-speaking

countries, the more popular equivalent being "

House of Representatives

", an exception being Burma, a former British colony, where it was the name of the lower house of the country's parliament. It was also the official description of Dáil Éireann (the lower house of the

Irish

parliament) during the period of the Irish Free State.

In

Malta

, the House of Representatives is known, in Maltese, as "''Kamra tad-Deputati''".
In

Lebanon

, the literal

Arabic

name of that country's

parliament

is ''Majlis an-Nuwwab'', or, "Chamber of Deputies" (although officially used French and English translations are "''Assemblée Nationale''" and "National Assembly", respectively).

A member of a "chamber of deputies" is generally called a "deputy", the definition of which is similar to that of "

congressperson

" or "member of parliament". The term "deputy" may refer to any member of a legislative body or chamber; this usage is particularly common in those

French-speaking

countries whose parliaments are called " national assemblies" and

Spanish-speaking

countries with legislative bodies called "

congresses

"; the term is also used by

Portugal

's Assembly of the Republic. In

Ireland

, it is used as a form of address when referring to members of Dáil Éireann instead of the Irish language term Teachta Dála, while in the

Channel Islands

, "Deputy" is used as the official title of most of the members of the States Assembly in

Jersey

and all but two of the members of the States of Deliberation in

Guernsey

.

Chamber of Deputies in bicameral legislature

In the following countries, the Chamber of Deputies is part of the bicameral legislature.

Unicameral legislatures

In the following countries, 'Chamber of Deputies' is the name given to the unicameral parliaments :

Defunct chambers of deputies

*Burma¹
*Congo-Kinshasa¹''Constitution de Luluabourg''
(1964 constitution of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
*

Ecuador

²
*Egypt²
*Ethiopia¹
*France¹
*

Czechoslovakia

^{2 3}
*Iraq¹
*Libya¹
*Nicaragua²
*Ottoman Empire
*Peru²
* Chamber of Deputies of the Portuguese Nation, lower house of the Cortes Gerais¹ and Chamber of Deputies of the Portuguese Republic, lower house of the Congress of the Republic¹
*Venezuela²
*Republic of Negros and Republic of Zamboanga (now a region of the Philippines)³
*Bahia²
*Ceará²
*Pernambuco²
*São Paulo²

1. Legislature disbanded

2. New constitution, unicameral system adopted

3. Government abolished, absorbed into another country

See also

*List of national legislatures

References

{{Reflist

Legislatures