, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system
modeled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French , the action of parler (to speak): a parlement is a discussion. The term came to mean a meeting at which such a discussion took place. It acquired its modern meaning as it came to be used for the body of people (in an institutional sense) who would meet to discuss matters of state.
Legislatures called parliaments operate under a parliamentary system
of government in which the executive is constitutionally answerable to the parliament.
1077 The first Parliament of Friuli is created.
1581 The English Parliament outlaws Roman Catholicism.
1606 Gunpowder Plot: Guy Fawkes is executed for his plotting against Parliament and James I of England.
1679 King Charles II of England disbands Parliament.
1689 The English Parliament passes the Act of Toleration protecting Protestants. Roman Catholics are intentionally excluded.
1825 The British Parliament abolishes feudalism and the seigneurial system in British North America.
1856 The colonial Tasmanian Parliament passes the second piece of legislation (the Electoral Act of 1856) anywhere in the world providing for elections by way of a secret ballot.
1991 Apartheid: the South African Parliament repeals the Population Registration Act which required racial classification of all South Africans at birth.
1991 The German parliament decides to move the capital from Bonn back to Berlin.
1993 Russian President Boris Yeltsin suspends parliament and scraps the then-functioning constitution, thus triggering the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993.