Concept
Bill (law)
Related concepts (23)
Legislative chamber
A legislative chamber or house is a deliberative assembly within a legislature which generally meets and votes separately from the legislature's other chambers. Legislatures are usually unicameral, consisting of only one chamber, or bicameral, consisting of two, but there are rare examples of tricameral and tetracameral legislatures. The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is the only country documented as having a pentacameral (later hexacameral) legislature.
Joint session
A joint session or joint convention is, most broadly, when two normally separate decision-making groups meet, often in a special session or other extraordinary meeting, for a specific purpose. Most often it refers to when both houses of a bicameral legislature sit together. A joint session typically occurs to receive foreign or domestic diplomats or leaders, or to allow both houses to consider bills together. Some constitutions give special power to a joint session, voting by majority of all members of the legislature regardless of which house or chamber they belong to.
Reading (legislature)
A reading of a bill is a stage of debate on the bill held by a general body of a legislature. In the Westminster system, developed in the United Kingdom, there are generally three readings of a bill as it passes through the stages of becoming, or failing to become, legislation. Some of these readings may be formalities rather than actual debate. The procedure dates back to the centuries before literacy was widespread. Since many members of Parliament were illiterate, the Clerk of Parliament would read aloud a bill to inform members of its contents.