PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY - Inter-Parliamentary Union

66 I PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
the autumn of 2005, in which school pupils will conduct simulations of the
parliamentary process. ‘They will act as parliamentarians in fictive plenary
meetings, meetings in standing committees and party groups, they will write
the necessary documents, and they will be confronted with the press.....This
will give them a very vivid impression of parliamentary democracy at work.’
A method which combines both school-based activity and a programme in
parliament involves school meetings to elect representatives to a National
Youth Parliament. Poland, for instance, has an annual Young Parliamentarians
meeting, in which young deputies are elected from schools across the country
and hold debates in parliament according to parliamentary procedure. A more
elaborate version has been developed by the Danish Folketing:
The purpose of the Youth Parliament is to help young people from
Denmark, the Faroe Islands and Greenland to understand the democratic
process better by letting them draw up their own Bills and
proposals for legislation, which they debate in committees and in full
session in the Folketing……Information on the Youth Parliament is
forwarded to teachers of grade 8 and 9 students at all schools. Each
class wishing to participate must draft a Bill collectively.
The Danish Parliament then selects 60 Bills according to the following
criteria:
■ contents of the bills
■ variation (coverage of the widest possible number of subjects)
■ wide geographical coverage ensuring that schools from all parts of
the country are represented.
The 60 Bills are distributed according to the relevant standing committees.
The initial part of the committee work is done electronically.
The second part of the committee work is done at Christiansborg
Palace at the meeting of the Youth Parliament……Each of the 12 committees
will discuss five Bills, of which one from each committee is
selected by the participants for discussion and vote in the Chamber.
Each committee also frames a question which will be put orally to a
Minister during Question Time.
The above comprise only a small selection of the initiatives being carried
out by parliaments in this important area. Beyond school, St. Kitts runs a
Youth Parliament for young people, representing various youth groups. ‘They
interact with Parliamentarians, the Speaker of the House and the Clerk of the