Legislative Branch
Elections to the House of Representatives (Kamra tad-Deputati) are based on the single transferable vote system, which in turn is a variant of the proportional representation electoral system. First vacancies are filled through casual election and subsequent vacancies through co-option, meaning that no by-elections are held between one general election and the other. The Parliamentary term cannot exceed five years.
Ordinarily, 65 members are elected to the House from 13 multi-seat constituencies each returning 5 MPs. Additional MPs are elected in two circumstances:
- when a party achieves 50%+1 of first-preference valid votes in the election but does not secure a Parliamentary majority it is awarded enough seats (filled by the best runner-up candidates) to make a Parliamentary majority
- when in an election contested by more than two parties only two parties are elected to Parliament and the relative Parliamentary strength is not proportionate to the first preference votes obtained, additional seats are allocated to establish proportionality
A third electoral amendment has been enacted which guarantees strict-proportionality with respect to votes and seats to parliamentary political groups.
Read more about this topic: Politics Of Malta
Famous quotes containing the words legislative and/or branch:
“However much we may differ in the choice of the measures which should guide the administration of the government, there can be but little doubt in the minds of those who are really friendly to the republican features of our system that one of its most important securities consists in the separation of the legislative and executive powers at the same time that each is acknowledged to be supreme, in the will of the people constitutionally expressed.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)