PARLIAMENTARY SOCIETY OF TORONTO
Parliamentary
law originally was the name given to the rules and customs for carrying on
business in the English Parliament, which were developed through a continuing
process of decisions and precedents somewhat like the growth of the common law.
This tradition stretches back over a 1,000 years. These rules and customs, as
brought to North America with the settling of the New World, became the basic
substance from which the practice of legislative bodies in Canada and the
United States evolved. Out of early legislative procedure and paralleling it in
further development has come the general parliamentary law, or common
parliamentary law, of today, which is adapted to the needs of organizations and
assemblies of widely differing purposes and conditions. In legislative bodies,
there is often recourse to the general parliamentary law in situations not
covered by the rules or precedents of the particular body‑although some
of the necessary procedure in such a case must be proper to that type of
assembly alone.
The kind
of gathering in which parliamentary law is applicable is known as a
deliberative assembly. This expression was used by Edmund Burke to describe the
English Parliament, in a speech to the electorate at Bristol in 1774; and it
became the basic term for a body of persons meeting to discuss and determine
upon common action. Acting under the general parliamentary law, any
deliberative assembly can formally adopt written rules of procedure that can
confirm, add to, or deviate from parliamentary law itself. The term rules of
order, in its proper sense, refers to any written parliamentary rules so
adopted, whether they are contained in a manual or have been specially composed
by the adopting body. The term parliamentary procedure, although frequently
used synonymously with parliamentary law, refers to parliamentary law as it is
followed in any given assembly or organization, together with whatever rules of
order the body may have adopted. But since there has not always been complete
agreement as to what constitutes parliamentary law, no society or assembly
should attempt to transact business without having adopted some standard manual
on the subject as its authority in all cases not covered by its own special
rules.
Extracted from the Seventh Edition
of Robert’s Rules of Order, Newly Revised
What Parliamentary Procedures is the
Parliamentary Society of Toronto Interested In?
Our members have a broad base of
interest in parliamentary procedure and many have become experts on a
particular procedure. The following is a partial list of procedures of
interest:
·
Procedures
for Meetings and Organizations, Kerr and King, Carswell
·
Bourinot’s
Rules of Order, Geoffrey
Stanford, McClelland and Steward Ltd.
·
Meeting
Procedures, Parliamentary Law and Rules of Order for the 21st Century, James Lochrie, Scarecrow Press
Inc.
