The German Bundestag ( of Deutscher the Bundestag ) is the parliamentary assembled of the the Federal Republic of Germany ensuring the representation of the German people as a whole. Bench by the Fundamental law of 1949 like successor of the Reichstag, it sits since 1999 with Berlin, with the Palais of the Reichstag renovated by Norman Foster.

The German political system being a parliamentary Mode, the Bundestag plays a central role there:

• It exerts in co-operation with the Bundesrat the Legislative power and the Pouvoir constituting with the federal level by adopting the federal laws and them revisions of the Fundamental law. It also ratifies the treaties and adopts the federal budget.
• It exerts a function of legitimation of other bodies, in particular by electing the federal chancellor and by taking part in the election of the federal president and the federal judges.
• It controls the action of the Federal government, which is responsible in front of him, as well as engagements of the armed forces of the Federation.

The members of the Bundestag (MdB) are elected for four years according to a particularly elaborate way of voting which combines ratable distribution of the seats and election of half of the members of Parliament to the majority poll. The normal number members is of 598, but the electoral system makes current the creation of mandates additional. The 16th Bundestag, taken up duty on October 18th, 2005, includes/understands 614 members and is chaired by the Christian Democrat Norbert Lammert; with less than one dissolution, its mandate will last until October 18th, 2009.

Election

See also: German Electoral system

The elections at the Bundestag take place every four years, except in the event of anticipated dissolution. The system is a hybrid system of the Scrutin proportional plurinominal and majority Uninominal system to a turn. The Bundestag is composed of at least 598 deputies including 299 elected officials in electoral constituencies. The mandates obtained by a party following the direct election (with the majority poll) of one their candidates are however charged to their “quota” of deputies as calculated according to the poll proportional. Consequently, the majority element plays a part in the distribution of the seats enter parties only if one party obtains with the majority poll a higher number of deputies than that to which it would have had right according to the only poll proportional. There are then additional mandates ( Überhangmandate ) that this party can keep. After the elections of 2002, there were five of them.

List elections

• 1949 : 1 {{er}} the Bundestag
• 1953: 2 {{E}} the Bundestag
• 1957: 3 {{E}} the Bundestag
• 1961: 4 {{E}} the Bundestag
• 1965: 5 {{E}} the Bundestag
• 1969: 6 {{E}} the Bundestag
• 1972: 7 {{E}} the Bundestag
• 1976: 8 {{E}} the Bundestag
• 1980: 9 {{E}} the Bundestag
• 1983: 10 {{E}} the Bundestag
• 1987: 11 {{E}} the Bundestag
• 1990: 12 {{E}} the Bundestag
• 1994: 13 {{E}} the Bundestag
• 1998: 14 {{E}} Bundestag
• 2002: 15 {{E}} the Bundestag
• 2005: 16 {{E}} the Bundestag

Organization

The most important bodies of the Bundestag are the parliamentary groups said Fraktionen . The parliamentary groups organize legislative work. For example, they prepare the work of the commissions, deposit the amendment and private bills, etc

Each parliamentary group includes/understands a president ( Fraktionsvorsitzender ), several vice-presidents and a management committee which meets each week. In the debates as at the time of the votes the discipline of party ( Fraktionsdiziplin ) is traditionally strong. Thus if one attends the debates of the Bundestag one notices that the vote is generally done by a sign of the president of the parliamentary group. The parties take care naturally of this discipline by affecting the districts or the places on the electoral rolls.

The bodies of the Bundestag also include/understand the council of the seniors ( Ältestenrat ) and præsidium (or presidium). The council is formed of the presidium and 23 seniors of the parliamentary groups. It is used in particular for the negotiations between parties especially on the presidency for the parliamentary commissions and the day order.

To each ministry a parliamentary commission (currently 21) corresponds.

Preparatory role of the commissions

The commissions are a key component of the parliamentary system because the debates start in plenary assembly only when the objects were lengthily discussed in their center. The opposition plays a big role so much at the time of the questions to the government (Fragestunde) that within the commissions.

A linguistic characteristic useful to announce to the French-speaking reader is the difference between Untersuchungsausschuss and Enquetekommission . A “ Untersuchungsausschuss ” is a board of inquiry, whereas his/her false friend “Enquetekommission” is not it, but a parliamentary commission ad hoc , supplemented by external experts, created to examine in a general way a political subject (such as for example the “ethical questions of biotechnology”).

Lower House or Parliament?

In Germany, some estimate that the Bundesrat is not a parliamentary assembly, but a body distinct from the Parliament, since it is only as member of the government of a federate entity that one can sit there; in this analysis, the Bundestag is then the Parliament - unicaméral - federal German.

Dissolution

The Bundestag can be dissolves by the federal president (Bundespräsident) in two precise cases:

• So at the beginning of the legislature or after the death or the resignation of the chancellor, the Bundestag does not manage to elect of chancellor with absolute majority of his members (article 63 subparagraph 4 of the Fundamental law of the Federal Republic of Germany).
• On a proposal from the chancellor, if the Bundestag answers negatively the question of confidence posed by the chancellor (article 68 subparagraph 1). This situation already arose in 1972 (chancellor: Willy Brandt, president: Gustav Heinemann) and in 1982 (chancellor: Helmut Kohl, president: Karl Carstens). In both cases, the chancellor saw himself refusing confidence with his request, with an aim of causing new elections, which is not without posing problem from the point of view of the constitutional law. The constitutional court limited such a provocation of refusal of confidence with decision of February 16th, 1983.

The May 22nd 2005 the chancellor Gerhard Schröder announced after the defeat of SPD to the regional elections of Rhineland-of-North-Westphalia its intention to raise the question of confidence on July 1st 2005 to give to the President any capacity necessary to solve the current crisis of State .

As envisaged, the Bundestag withdrew its confidence with Gerhard Schröder with the vote of July 1st (confidence: 151 votes; no confidence: 296 votes; abstentions: 148 votes). Then, the chancellor formally asked federal President Horst Köhler to dissolve the Bundestag. July 21st, 2005, the President issued dissolution and fixed the elections at the September 18th 2005, first Sunday after school vacations and last Sunday of the time constituionnel 60 days. The Constitutional court rejected the recourse of three minor parties against dissolution like inadmissible on August 23rd and those of both appoint Jelena Hoffmann (SPD) and Werner Schulz (Greens) like nonfounded on August 25th.

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