Below you find a Parliamentary Glossary that we have developed. If you have words to be added or definition to be change, please let us know.

Here you can find other online glossaries that could also be useful, again, if you any suggestions, let's know:

• Glossary - Parliamentary Jargon Explained of the UK Parliament
• Parliamentary Glossary A-B of the Australian Parliament
• A Parliamentary Glossary of the State of Victoria, Australia
• Glossary of Parliamentarian Terms of Nancy Sylvester

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

• Segment of the sitting time allocated to a reporter to record the proceedings in the house. See also FunctionalSystemRequirements.

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.