Parliamentary sessions and sittings

The quality and success of a parliament, its efficiency, as well as the atmosphere that prevails in it, largely depend on the way in which its internal relations are established. In this paper, attention is paid to only one segment of the internal organization of the parliament - parliamentary sessions and sittings, i.e. the time frame of parliamentary work. The majority view in theory is that the legislative period should not be too short, so that parliamentarians can dedicate themselves to their work instead of focusing their attention on conducting a (permanent) election campaign. On the other hand, more frequent elections are a way to test the legitimacy of a representative, which in a modern democracy is almost the only possible way for voters to influence the representative body. There are different solutions in comparative practice. The legislature period usually lasts four years; in the case of the British Parliament it is five years (previously it was seven years), and members of the US Congress are elected for a period of two years. A parliamentary session is a period of one year when the parliament meets and performs its duties, but the parliamentary year, as well as the budget year, does not always coincide with the calendar year, so we have the case of the British Parliament whose session usually begins in November and lasts until next November, although there is no legislation providing for the time it is bound to end the session. Constitutional engineering created systems with a permanent session of parliament, which was a characteristic of revolutionary assemblies, and which still remains in certain systems, as well as systems in which periods of regular sessions were established during one year, while at a time when parliament was not in regular session - there is a possibility of special sessions. During the session, the parliament discusses and decides within smaller time and working units - sittings, which have a precisely determined agenda which determines the issues that will be discussed and decided, as well as the order in which it will be done. Pursuant to the principle of parliamentary autonomy, all issues related to setting: the agenda, scheduling, beginning, course of the sitting, maintaining order, quorum, voting, etc. are regulated by parliamentary rules of procedure. The agenda of the sitting is determined by the parliament on the basis of the government's proposal or independently. In practice, the government manages to influence the agenda even when it is not formally entitled to do so. In addition, the opposition influences the determination of the agenda, most often through the collegium of the Speaker, which usually includes the heads of parliamentary clubs. In certain systems, the opposition also has the opportunity to decide independently on topics that will be discussed by the parliament.