The General Assembly holds its sessions in the Chamber of Representatives of the Legislative Palace. During the 19th century, the legislature met in the Montevideo Cabildo.
History
In 1828, on the initiative of Juan Antonio Lavalleja, delegates were elected to what was to be the Parliament of the Eastern Province of Río de la Plata. As a consequence of the Treaty of Montevideo, such institution became the General Constituent and Legislative Assembly of the State, and had among other tasks the drafting of the country's first Constitution.[2]
The Assembly was unicameral. But since the establishment of the Constitution in 1830, the Uruguayan Parliament became bicameral, and has remained so to this day. The voting system of its members also changed: during the 19th century, voting was reserved for a minority, and senators represented departments. Later, the secret and universal vote was established, and the representativeness of the senators, who are elected at the national level, was reformulated.[3]
Attributes
The ordinary sessions span is from March 1 to December 15, or until September 15 in the event that elections are held, since the new Assembly must begin its sessions on February 15 of the following year.[4]
Article Ninety of the Uruguayan Constitution requires that members of the Chamber of Representatives must be aged at least 25 and have been a citizen of Uruguay for five years.[5] While Article Ninety-eight requires that the members of the Senate must be at least 30 years old and have been Uruguayan citizens for seven years.[6]
The General Assembly is entitled to politically judge the conduct of the Ministers of State, to declare war and to approve or reject peace treaties, alliances, commerce, and conventions or contracts of any nature that the Executive Power enters into with foreign powers and designate every year the necessary armed force, as well as allowing foreign troops to enter the country. Denying or granting the departure of national forces outside the nation is also among the functions of the Assembly. The creation of new Departments, the setting of their limits, as well as the establishment of customs and export and import duties concern the legislative power, in addition to other functions established in Article Eighty-Five of the Constitution.[7]
As a result of the high number of small parties not meeting the mathematical threshold to obtain representation in the Senate, the Broad Front won 16 of the 30 seats despite not achieving a majority of the valid votes. On the other hand, no coalition secured a majority in the Chamber of Representatives.[8] The blank and invalid votes represented almost 5% and more than 100,000 votes, a record high.
The Library of the Legislative Power of Uruguay is a specialized institution whose main objective is to assist Uruguayan legislators and the cultural development of the community in the fulfillment of its functions, in order to provide documentation, information and advice to citizens, thanks to extensive bibliographic, jurisprudential, doctrinal and legislative collection.[9] It is considered the second most important library in Uruguay, behind the National Library, due to the large collection and the status of parliamentary and public library.[10] The current library was founded on August 25, 1929, and has its origin in the unification of the libraries of the Chamber of Representatives and the Chamber of Senators.[11]
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