General Assemblies of Lucrecia
The General Assemblies of Lucrecia (Isurian: Asembleas Xerais de Lucrecia; Pelaxian: Comicios Generales de Lucrecia) is the tricamerial parliament of Lucrecia. Its three legislative houses are, from lowest to highest, the Popular Assembly, the Centuriate Assembly, and the Senatorial House. The Popular Assembly is a federated legislative house that is split between the provincial Tributary Assembly, and the popular Common Assembly, the members of both chambers being chosen through direct election and serve for three years. The Centuriate Assembly, initially representative of the regions of the Emeritan and pre-1970 Lucrecian republics, represents the cantons and the linguistic groups of which they are elected by and serve for five years. The Senatorial House represents the aristocracy of the republic, and was once the most powerful legislative house until its powers and abilities reduced it to a 500-strong committee of legal experts as the aristocracy tended towards the law instead of the military as their mainstay; they are appointed for life by the Consuls.
General Assemblies of Lucrecia Asembleas Xerais de Lucrecia Comicios Generales de Lucrecia | |
|---|---|
| 737th Session | |
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| Type | |
| Type | Tricameral |
| Houses | Senatorial House Centuriate Assembly Popular Assembly |
| Leadership | |
Marco Bahamonde since 25 March 1995 | |
Juan Portillo since 15 March 2033 | |
| Structure | |
| Seats |
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Popular Assembly political groups |
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Centuriate Assembly political groups |
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| Elections | |
Popular Assembly last election | 18 March 2035 |
Centuriate Assembly last election | 13 March 2032 |
| Meeting place | |
| National Assembly Building Emérida d'il Mar, Lucrecia | |
The sitting for the two lower houses always begins in March, with the Centuriate election being held on 13 March and the legislative election being held on 18 March. Members of these houses have no set term limit, although it is customary for members to retire at the age of 80 to make way for younger aspiring politicians, often a protégé of the outgoing member. Presently, there are 1050 members of the General Assemblies, with each legislative house being given as follows: 500 senators, 150 centurions, 200 tributaries, and 200 popular representatives. This makes the General Assemblies not only one of the few legislatures in the world to have more upper house members than lower house members, but also one of the largest legislatures by total amount of members.
Because the General Assemblies is seen as the continuation of the Emeritan legislature and not a successor, the year of its establishment is said to be the year 178 BC, which was when the Emeritan Republic was formed. Initially a tetracameral legislature, the two lowest houses, that being the Tributary and Common Assemblies, were merged in the 1970s to form the Popular Assembly as Lucrecia moved towards decentralisation and linguistic segregation which necessitated a move away from the traditional Caphiric Republic-based form of government. It is also because of these changes that the party system presently consists of many small linguistically-segregated parties, which in turn practically requires that coalition governments must be negotiated and formed, although conventionally the two main parties of each ideology that is linguistically segregated often caucus with each other as it is constitutionally impossible for incompatible languages to run in an incompatible community (A Pelaxian-speaking candidate would not be able to run in the Isurian Generality, although an Isurian-speaking candidate would be able to run in the bilingual Emerida-Presidential Canton). Case in point, the current composition of the Popular Assembly has made it so that a grand coalition had to be arranged between the establishment parties so as to prevent the far-right PXI from taking control of the Curia.