Parliamentary Rules of Procedure - European Parliament - Europa

• Voting on identical amendments as one.
• Where there are a large number of amendments,
asking the relevant parliamentary committee to
vote on them first as a form of filter. any amend-
ments that receive less than 1/10th of the votes
will not be put to the vote in plenary.
• Allowing the President, exceptionally, to rule
amendments out of order if he considers they
have been tabled facetiously or simply to disrupt
the proceedings of the house (e.g. dozens of near
identical amendments).
The need for such rules will differ from one parliament
to another and will depend on, amongst
other things, traditions, parliament’s size and
whether its political culture tends towards consensus
or conflict. some parliaments may even
require rules which are rarely if ever implemented
but exist simply as a precautionary measure.
in this wide field, it is perhaps useful to examine
examples of rules in various parliaments under
several specific headings.
as regards the right (where it exists) for individual
members to initiate legislative proposals:
The UK House of commons provides:
23.– (1.) On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and, if given
by a Minister of the Crown, on Mondays and Thurs-
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days, notices of motions for leave to bring in bills,
and for the nomination of select committees, may
be set down for consideration at the commencement
of public business. The Speaker, after permitting,
if he thinks fit, a brief explanatory statement
from the Member who makes and from a Member
who opposes any such motion respectively, shall
put either the question thereon, or the question,
‘That the debate be now adjourned’.
(2.) With respect to a private Member’s motion for
leave to bring in a bill under this order –
(a) notice shall be given in the Public Bill Office by
the Member in person or by another Member on
his behalf, but on any one day not more than one
notice shall be accepted from any one Member;
(b) no notice shall be given for a day on which a
notice of motion under this order already stands
on the paper;
(c) no notice shall be given for a day earlier than
the fifth or later than the fifteenth sitting day after
the day on which it is given;
(d) not more than one such notice shall stand on
the paper in the name of any one Member for a day
within any period of fifteen sitting days.
(3.) No notice may be given under this order for a
day on which Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer has
declared his intention of opening his Budget; but –
(i) notices proposed to be given for such day, and
(ii) notices so given for a day in respect of which such
intention is subsequently declared, shall be treated
as having been given for the first Monday on which
the House shall sit after the Budget is opened, and