Parliament of Georgia

The Parliament of Georgia (tr) is the supreme national legislature of Georgia. It is a unicameral parliament, currently consisting of 150 members; of these, 120 are proportional representatives and 30 are elected through single-member district plurality system, representing their constituencies. According to the 2017 constitutional amendments, the Parliament will transfer to fully proportional representation in 2024. All members of the Parliament are elected for four years on the basis of universal human suffrage. The Constitution of Georgia grants the Parliament of Georgia a central legislative power, which is limited by the legislatures of the autonomous republics of Adjara and Abkhazia. The idea of limiting royal power and creating a parliamentary-type body of government was conceived among the aristocrats and citizens in the 12th century Kingdom of Georgia, during the reign of Queen Tamar, the first Georgian female monarch. In the view of Queen Tamar's oppositionists and their leader, Qutlu Arslan, the first Georgian Parliament was to be formed of two "Chambers": a) Darbazi – or assembly of aristocrats and influential citizens who would meet from time to time to take decisions on the processes occurring in the country, the implementation of these decisions devolving on the monarch b) Karavi – a body in permanent session between the meetings of the Darbazi. The confrontation ended in the victory of the supporters of royal power. Qutlu Arslan was arrested on the Queen's order.. However, Queen Tamar did during her reign have a chamber of advisors, who could propose laws for the monarch however did not have final say about laws and how the country should be governed. Subsequently, it was only in 1906 that the Georgians were afforded the opportunity of sending their representatives to a parliamentary body of government, to the Second State Duma (from 1801 Georgia had been incorporated in the Russian Empire).