The Gibraltar Parliament is the legislature of the British overseas territory of

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. Between 1969 and 2006, it was called the Gibraltar House of Assembly.

Functions

The House of Assembly, set up under the 1969 constitution, was a

unicameral Unicameralism (from ''uni''- "one" + Latin ''camera'' "chamber") is a type of legislature, which consists of one house or assembly, that legislates and votes as one. Unicameral legislatures exist when there is no widely perceived need for multic ...

body originally consisting of 15 members elected by the Gibraltar electorate, plus two appointed members including the

Attorney-General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...

. The term "

House of Assembly House of Assembly is a name given to the legislature or lower house of a bicameral parliament. In some countries this may be at a subnational level. Historically, in British Crown colonies as the colony gained more internal responsible gove ...

" has been commonly used for the legislatures of British territories that are less than fully sovereign. It was replaced by the current Gibraltar Parliament by the new 2006 constitution, reflecting an increase in its sovereignty. All 17 of the new Parliament's members are elected. Under the election system, each voter was allowed to vote for ten members of the Assembly. Due to the small area of Gibraltar and its territorial continuity, precincts served only as polling places, not political units, and there are no electoral districts served by the members, who were instead elected "at large" to serve the territory as a whole. The system lends itself to

block voting Block voting or bloc voting refers to electoral systems in which multiple candidates are elected at once and a group (voting bloc) of voters can force the system to elect only their preferred candidates. Block voting may be used at large (in a si ...

each of the parties or electoral coalitions tended to nominate a slate of ten candidates and encourage its supporters to vote for all of them. In most cases, the winning party or coalition would have all ten of its nominees elected, with the other seven elected members coming from the second-place party.

Parliament building

The Parliament sits in a building overlooking Main Street and

John Mackintosh Square John Mackintosh Square (colloquially The Piazza) is a main square in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. It has been the centre of city life since the 14th century and takes its name from John Mackintosh, a local philanthropist. Notab ...

. It was constructed in 1817 and previously served as the Exchange and Commercial Library. In 1951, the building was refurbished to host the Legislative Council. Under the 1969 Constitution, the House of Assembly was established, superseding the Legislative Council. The first session of the House of Assembly was opened on 28 August 1969 by the then

Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Varyl Begg.

Current membership

The 17 Members of the Gibraltar Parliament, as of the most recent election, are:

Latest election

Summary of the 17 October 2019 Gibraltar Parliament election results

References

External links

* {{National unicameral legislatures

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...