Constitutional Council

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Month: June 2011

Elections to Althingi

The Constitutional Council’s proposal for the election of members of Althingi includes a fairly radical, although not unexpected change, proposing a system of preferential voting.  The proposal is a little short on details, which will be provided in a legislation about parliamentary elections.  However, the proposal stipulates that 63 members will be elected from eight or fewer districts and that voters can either vote for a party list or individual candidates.  If the voters opt for voting for individual candidates they are allowed to distribute their votes across candidates of different parties and are free to vote candidate running in any district (if there is more than one district).   The electoral law can require up to 2/5 of the seats in parliament to be elected from district lists (rather than a national list).

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Parliament/Alþingi – Committees & Ministers

The constitutional council’s proposal includes proposals intended to strengthen parliament vis-a-vis the executive office.  These proposals include handing legislative committees (monopoly?) proposal power and requiring ministers to give up their seats in parliament upon taking office.  The council’s explanations envision a process in which ministers approach the committees about proposing legislation, which is then developed by the committees.  By requiring ministers to resign their seat in parliament, the council hopes that ministers will to a greater degree not come from the ranks of MPs.  In short, it is not likely that these proposal will do much to strengthen parliament.

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