Senate of Romania

The Senate (Romanian: Senat) is the upper house in the bicameral Parliament of Romania. It has 176 seats (as of 9 December 2012, after the next legislative elections 136), to which members are elected by direct popular vote, using mixed member proportional representation (at the next elections by closed list party-list proportional representation) in 43 electoral districts (the 41 counties, the city of Bucharest plus 1 constituency for the Romanians living abroad), to serve four-year terms.

History

First Senate, 1859 to 1944

The parliamentary history of Romania is seen as beginning in May 1831 in Wallachia, where a constitution called the Regulamentul Organic ("Organic Statute") was promulgated by the Russian Empire and adopted. In January 1832 it came into force in Moldavia also. This laid the foundations for the parliamentary institution in the two Romanian principalities. At the Congress of Paris of 1856, Russia gave up to Moldavia the left bank of the mouth of the Danube, including part of Bessarabia, and also gave up its claim to be the protector of Christians in the Ottoman Empire. Moldavia and Wallachia, while remaining under the suzerainty of the Ottomans, were recognized as quasi-independent self-governing principalities under the protection of the other European Powers.