Comparison of the British Parliament and the American Congress

Comparison of the British Parliament and the American Congress

Nйmeth Barbara

Szombathely

2005

Introduction

I write this essay with the aim of comparing the British Parliament with the American Congress. I personally think that everybody should know the major differences between political system of the US and the UK.

First of all, I would like to describe my technical conception in my essay. I separated it in two columns and on the left side I write about the British Parliament and on the other side about the American Congress. I tried to draw a parallel between the two systems and the columns, which are next to each other, examine the two institutes from the same aspect. After each section I summarized what has been written. Of course my list cannot be complete since their system is totally different thanks to their different backgrounds.

An intelligent and educated person should be aware of the structure and the role of the political parties. I would also like to point out the difference between the two countries, which have the same language, but their politics is quite different.

In general

A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system derived from that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French parlement, the action of parler (to speak) : a parlement is a talk, a discussion, hence a meeting (an assembly, a court) where people discuss matters. While all parliaments are legislatures, not all legislatures are parliaments.

In the United Kingdom, Parliament consists of the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the Monarch. In a similar fashion, most other nations with parliaments have to some degree emulated the British, "three-tier" model. Most countries in Europe and the Commonwealth have similarly organized parliaments with a largely ceremonial Head of State who formally opens and closes parliament, a large elected lower house and a smaller, upper house. The lower house