|
The Bundestag ((:ˈbʊndəstaːk), "Federal Diet") is a constitutional and legislative body at the federal level in Germany. The Bundestag was established by the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (Constitution) in 1949 as the Lower House of the German Federal Parliament and thus the historical successor to the earlier Reichstag. Since 1999 it meets in the Reichstag Building in Berlin. Norbert Lammert is the current President of the Bundestag. Members (''Abgeordnete'') of the Bundestag are usually elected every four years by all adult German citizens in a mixed system of constituency voting and list voting. However, the election day can be earlier if the Federal Chancellor (''Bundeskanzler'') loses a vote of no confidence and asks the Federal President (''Bundespräsident'') to dissolve the Bundestag in order to hold new general elections. In the 19th century the name Bundestag was the unofficial designation for the assembly of the sovereigns and mayors of the Monarchies and Free Cities which formed the German Confederation (1815-1866). Its seat was in the Free City of Frankfurt on the Main. ==History== With the dissolution of the German Confederation in 1866 and the founding of the German Empire (Deutsches Reich) in 1871, the Reichstag was established as the German parliament in Berlin, which was the capital of the then Kingdom of Prussia (the largest and most influential state in both the Confederation and the empire). Two decades later, the current parliament building was erected. The Reichstag delegates were elected by direct and equal male suffrage (and not the three-class electoral system prevailing in Prussia until 1918). The Reichstag did not participate in the appointment of the Chancellor until the parliamentary reforms of October 1918. After the Revolution of November 1918 and the establishment of the Weimar Constitution, women were given the right to vote for (and serve in) the Reichstag, and the parliament could use the no-confidence vote to force the chancellor or any cabinet member to resign. In March 1933, one month after the Reichstag fire, the then president, Paul von Hindenburg, a retired war hero, gave Hitler ultimate power through the Decree for the Protection of People and State and the Enabling Act of 1933, although Hitler remained at the post of Federal Government Chancellor (though he called himself the Führer). After this the Reichstag met only rarely, usually at the ''Krolloper'' (Kroll Opera House) following the Reichstag fire starting in 1933 to unanimously rubber-stamp the decisions of the government. It last convened on 26 April 1942. With the new constitution of 1949, the Bundestag was established as the new (West) German parliament. Because West Berlin was not officially under the jurisdiction of the Constitution and because of the Cold War, the Bundestag met in Bonn in several different buildings, including (provisionally) a former water works facility. In addition, owing to the city's legal status, citizens of West Berlin were unable to vote in elections to the Bundestag, and were instead represented by 20 non-voting delegates, indirectly elected by the city's House of Representatives. The Bundeshaus in Bonn is the former Parliament Building of Germany. The sessions of the German Bundestag were held there from 1949 until its move to Berlin in 1999. Today it houses the International Congress Centre Bundeshaus Bonn and in the north areas the branch office of the Bundesrat ("Federal Council", the Upper House of the German Federal Parliament representing the ''Länder'', i.e. the federated States). The southern areas became part of German offices for the United Nations in 2008. The former Reichstag building housed a history exhibition (Fragen an die deutsche Geschichte) and served occasionally as a conference center. The Reichstag building was also occasionally used as a venue for sittings of the Bundestag and its committees and the Bundesversammlung (Federal Assembly), the body which elects the German Federal President. However, the Soviets harshly protested against the use of the Reichstag building by institutions of the Federal Republic of Germany and tried to disturb the sittings by flying supersonic jets close to the building. Since 1999, the German parliament has again assembled in Berlin in its original Reichstag building, which was built in 1888 based on the plans of German architect Paul Wallot and underwent a significant renovation under the lead of British architect Sir Norman Foster. Parliamentary committees and subcommittees, public hearings and faction meetings take place in three auxiliary buildings, which surround the Reichstag building: the Jakob-Kaiser-Haus, Paul-Löbe-Haus and Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus. In 2005, a small aircraft crashed close to the German parliament. It was then decided to ban private air traffic over Central Berlin. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bundestag」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|