The European Parliament puts important political, economic and social issues in the spotlight. It debates and votes on these issues and upholds the values of the European Union: respect for human rights, freedom, democracy, equality and the rule of law.
Most parliamentary democracies employ a legislative branch that makes laws through a majority vote of its members. Legislators are elected by single-member electoral districts, whereas some parliamentary systems use multi-member constituencies with mixed proportional and plurality voting methods. In these systems, voters mark a ballot paper with one vote for a single candidate representing their constituents and another vote for a party list (or ‘committee’). Votes are counted and the candidates who receive the highest number of first preference votes are elected. The remaining surplus’second’ (and third, fourth, etc) preference votes are transferred to other candidates until a threshold quota is reached. This process is called ‘transferable vote’.
Occasionally, voters in a parliamentary system may choose not to give a second preference and only mark their first choice on their ballot. Then, if their first choice is not elected, the vote is disqualified and the second preference votes are reassigned to other candidates until a winning candidate is found.
The executive branch of a parliamentary system is led by a head of government known as the prime minister who heads a cabinet of executive ministers. Many parliamentary democracies have a constitutional court that has the right to state that a law violates the constitution or is unconstitutional. Parliamentary systems often have a separation of the legislative and executive branches, but there are some exceptions such as India, where the role of the legislature is blurred.