Lower house

From Wikinfo

An lower house is one of two chambers of a bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the upper house. In comparison with the upper house, the lower house is usually:

• More powerful.
• Democratically elected (and based on fair apportionment).
• Larger in membership.

The supremacy of the lower house usually arises from special restrictions placed on the powers of the upper house, which often, for example, may only delay rather than veto legislation. Under parliamentary systems it is usually the lower house alone that designates the head of government or prime minister, and may remove them through a vote of no confidence. There are exceptions to this however, such as the Prime Minister of Japan, who is formally selected with the approval of both houses of the Diet.

Titles of lower houses

• House of Representatives
• Chamber of Deputies
• House of Commons
• National Assembly
• House of Assembly

• Chamber of Representatives - Uruguay, Colombia, Belarus
• Congress of Deputies - Spain
• [[D�il]] - Ireland
• Duma - Russia
• House of Keys - Isle of Man
• Lok Sabha - India
• Sejm - Poland
• Tweede Kamer - Netherlands
• National Council - Switzerland, Austria

See also: List of national legislatures.

References

• Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Lower_house" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_house, used under the GNU Free Documentation License