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3.13. Glossary of Parliamentary Terms

Parliamentary Glossary

Allotted Day

  • A day allotted for the consideration in committee of ways and means of proposals in the financial statement on the annual estimates concerning taxes or duties

Bills

  • Proposed legislation for debate in the House

Citation of Bill

  • The first clause of a bill

Clause

  • Statement or a paragraph in a bill. A clause is normally numbered

Clerk (of the National Assembly)

  • Principal procedural adviser to the Speaker or Deputy Speaker, or any other person performing the duties of the Clerk by direction of the Speaker.

Committed

  • Dedicate a task to members or a selected group of members

Committee/commissions

  • A small group of members of the house selected to deliberate on a specific house task

Debate Record

  • The DebateRecord is a verbatim record of proceedings on the floor of parliament. It is essentially a record of speeches and motions on the floor of parliament. See Hansard.

Gazette

  • A weekly official government bulletin documenting legal notices including high ranking appointments and sanctioned changes in personnel

Government

  • An object that records the state of a group that consists of Ministries. The object records internal state in terms of commencement date, end date, official gazetted date, official dissolution date, leader of government etc..

Hansard

  • The official, complete report of proceedings in a Parliament

House

  • Parliament

Leave of the House

  • When there is no objection by any member either with the sympathy of Mr speaker or with the support of at least two other members.

Minister

  • Includes the president, the vice president, other ministers, the attorney general, assistant ministers and any person who holds temporarily any such office

Motion

  • Proposal by a member for debate to effect or introduce a change in public policy

Official Opposition Party

  • The opposition party consisting of not less than thirty Members

Order Paper

  • A report specifying the agenda for a particular House sitting.

Parliament identifier

  • The "nth" parliament since independence, e.g., 9th Parliament

Parliamentary Business

  • Report listing all the business of the House that has been scheduled for the following week.

Preamble

  • Introductory section of a bill

Private Bill

  • Any bill introduced by a back-bencher

Public Bill

  • Any bill introduced by a minister.

Proceedings

  • Deliberations/debates held in parliament

Proposer

  • Member proposing a motion, bill or question.

Put the Question

  • Expression used by the presiding officer informing Members to vote yes or no to a motion or bill.

Questions

  • A query by a member of the house to a Minister in charge of a government ministry

Reader

  • Person assigned to cross check the initial transcripts submitted by a reporter

Recess

  • A period during which the House is not sitting.

Re-committal of a bill

  • Taking a bill back to the Committee of the Whole House after a member proposes a change to the bill at the report stage.

Reporter

  • A person who records and transcribes each take of the house sitting from tape

Rota

  • Schedule denoting the time each reporter will report to the House Chamber to cover a certain portion of the proceedings. See also FunctionalSystemRequirements.

Rota identifier

  • The alphabet used to uniquely identify the take in the rota.

Schedule

  • Supporting documents to a bill e.g. a bill proposing the increase in salaries will have a schedule specifying the increments for each category of employees.

Seconded

  • Support or backing of a motion by a member not the proposer of the motion

Session

  • Sitting of the house commencing when it first meets after its prorogation or dissolution and terminating when the National Assembly is prorogued or is dissolved without having been prorogued.

Severally

  • Reading of more than one clause of a bill at the same time for debate in the House.

Sitting

  • Any day on which the House sits.

Standing Order

  • Codified or accepted procedures governing the conduct of business in the house and the behaviour of Members

Take

Take Identifier

  • This is a letter of the alphabet that uniquely identifies the take for a sitting.

Transcribing

  • Process of writing out the recordings from a tape to an editor (word perfect) by a reporter

Votes & Proceedings

  • Minutes to be discussed in a house sitting.


 
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