Everything about Senator For Life totally explained
A
senator for life is a member of the
senate elected or appointed for lifetime.
Currently, a few members of the
Italian Senate are lifetime senators. Several
South American countries once granted lifetime membership to former presidents but have since abolished that practice.
Italy
Overview
In
Italy, a
senatore a vita is a member of the
Italian Senate appointed by the
President of the Italian Republic "for outstanding patriotic merits in the social, scientific, artistic or literary field". Former Presidents of the Republic are
ex officio life senators.
A limit of five senators for life, excluding former Presidents, is established by the Italian constitution, though there's a still unsolved debate as to whether each President of the Republic has the right to name five senators for life, or if five is the maximum allowed number of senators for life. Till 1984 this last interpretation was considered correct, but in that year President Pertini applied the second interpretation of the Constitution, and since then no measures have been taken to clarify this situation, made even more important by the key role senators for life had during the second Prodi Government. They have the same equal power of elected senators, including the right to vote and being elected to the Presidency of the Senate. In addition, their mandate doesn't end with the dissolution of a Senate, allowing them to sit in any elected Senate for their whole lifetime.
Every President of the Italian Republic has made at least one appointment of a senator for life, with the exception of
Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, and sitting President
Giorgio Napolitano so far. The president who appointed the highest number of senators for life was
Luigi Einaudi, who made eight nominations during his mandate.
List of Italian life senators
As of 2008, there are seven in office:
Former lifetime senators:
Burundi
In
Burundi, former heads of state serve in the
Senate for life. At present there are four of these:
Jean-Baptiste Bagaza,
Sylvestre Ntibantunganya,
Pierre Buyoya, and
Domitien Ndayizeye.
Canada
Members of the
Canadian Senate used to be appointed for life. Since the
Constitution Act, 1965, however, newly-appointed members face mandatory retirement upon reaching the age of
seventy-five. Though they were
grandfathered by the legislation, there are no longer any lifetime senators present in the Canadian Senate.
John Michael Macdonald, the last senator for life, died in
1997.
South America
The
constitutions of a number of countries in
South America have granted former presidents the right to be senator for life (
senador vitalicio), possibly recalling the entirely unelected Senate of
Bolivarian theory (see
Tricameralism#Bolivar's tricameralism). Most of these countries have since excised these provisions as they're increasingly seen as antidemocratic. The
Constitution of Paraguay still has such a provision, but former presidents are permitted only to speak and not vote. Probably the most familiar case is that of Chilean dictator
Augusto Pinochet (1998-2002) whose
parliamentary immunity protected him from prosecution for
human rights violations until the
Chilean Supreme Court revoked it in
2000.
In Venezuela, the lifetime senate seat was extant from 1961 to 1999. The former Presidents who held this position were: Rómulo Betancourt (1964-1981), Raúl Leoni (1969-1972), Rafael Caldera (1974-1994, 1999), Carlos Andrés Pérez (1979-1989, 1994-1996), Luis Herrera Campins (1984-1999) and Jaime Lusinchi (1989-1999). The senate was abolished with the 1999 constitution.
In Peru, the practice was extant from 1979 to 1993. Francisco Morales Bermúdez, Fernando Belaúnde Terry and Alan García Pérez were the only lifetime senators until the abolition of the senate in 1993 and the introduction of a unicameral parliament.
In Chile, under the 1980 Constitution, two ex-Presidents have become senators-for-life: Augusto Pinochet Ugarte (1998-2002) and Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle (2000-2006). The provision was abolished by constitutional reforms in 2005.
Brazil
The senators of the Empire of Brazil were appointed for lifetime (1826-1889). The emperor appointed the senator for each constituency from a list of three, indirectly elected, candidates. For details, see Senate of Brazil: History
There were about 250 senators of the Empire of Brazil:
France
In France, during the Third Republic, the Senate was composed of 300 members, 75 of which were inamovible ("unremovable"). Introduced in 1875, the status was suppressed for new senators in 1884, but maintained for those in office. Émile Deshayes de Marcère, the last surviving sénateur inamovible, died in 1918. Overall there had been 116 lifetime senators.
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