Quorum in the Assembly and its committees (Updating of the Assembly's Rules of Procedure)

Resolution 619 (1976)

Author(s):

Parliamentary Assembly

Origin

Assembly debate on 3 May 1976 (1st Sitting) (see Doc. 3757, report of the Committee on Rules of Procedure). Text adopted by the Assembly on 3 May 1976 (1st Sitting).

Thesaurus

The Assembly,

1. Having regard to the reports of its Committee on Rules of Procedure on updating the Assembly's Rules of Procedure, Docs. 3450 and 3639, and its Resolutions 577 (of 26 September 1974) and 602 (of 6 October 1975) ;

2. Noting that the application of the rules concerning the quorum at plenary sittings and in committee are still causing certain difficulties ;

3. Having regard to the report of its Committee on Rules of Procedure (Doc. 3757) ;

4. Considering, where the quorum in the Assembly is concerned, that :

a it is necessary to remove the ambiguity arising from the fact that the Rules of Procedure appear to exclude from the count for the quorum for roll-call votes any members who are present but who do not answer to their name when it is called ; [(1) Rule 37-4 : 'A vote by roll-call shall not be valid, nor the result be made public, if the vote shows that more than half the Representatives were not present...'] and

b it ought to be specified that ascertaining whether a quorum exists is one of the duties of the President,

5. Decides :

a to delete the words "the vote shows that" from paragraph 4 of Rule 37 ;

b to insert the words "ascertain whether a quorum exists" after "close debates" in paragraph 1 of Rule 10 ;

6. Considering further that the French version of Rule 37 is not clear on one point,

7. Decides, in the French version of Rule 37.2 and 4, to leave out the words "se trouvent réunis" or "ne se trouvent pas réunis", and to insert instead "sont présents en séance" or "ne sont pas présents en séance", while the English version should remain unchanged ;

8. Considering on the other hand that, rather than by amendments to the Rules of Procedure, difficulties with the quorum in committee can best be overcome by practical means, and in particular by leaving the seats of delegations which do not wish or are unable to be represented regularly at meetings vacant,

9. Recommends that national delegations, committees and the Secretariat adopt the proposals concerning unfilled seats, dates of meetings and their co-ordination, replacement of members by alternates etc., contained in paragraphs 34 to 40 of the explanatory memorandum in the report of the Committee on Rules of Procedure (Doc. 3757).