27 April 1995

Doc. 7297

REPORT on provisions relating to the modification of the Assembly's order of business

(Rapporteur : Mrs AGUIAR, Portugal, Liberal, Democratic and Reformers' Group)


I. Draft resolution

1.       The Assembly notes that for terminological reasons a confusion is easily made between "agenda" and "order of business" of the session.

2.       Problems have also arisen with respect to the majority required for modifying the order of business for the first time during a part-session.

3.       In order to clarify this, the Assembly decides to insert, in Rule 16, paragraph 8 of the Rules of Procedure, before the last sentence, the following text:

"The adoption by the Assembly of such an alteration shall require a majority of the votes cast1".

II. Explanatory memorandum

by Mrs AGUIAR

A.       Introduction

1.       At its meeting of 1 July 1994, the Bureau instructed the Committee on Rules of Procedure to examine the provisions relating to approval of the Parliamentary Assembly's agenda and order of business.

B.       Statutory provisions

2.       The Statute of the Council of Europe says nothing about the Assembly's order of business. However it does refer to the agenda three times:

-       Article 23 sets out the limits of the Assembly's autonomy in deciding its agenda; this article also stipulates that it is for the President of the Assembly to decide whether a question raised is within the agenda;

-       Article 28 of the statute stipulates that the Assembly's rules of procedure shall determine the manner in which the agenda shall be drawn up and communicated to representatives;

-       Article 31 of the statute states that debates that a matter should be placed on the Assembly's agenda shall be confined to an indication of the proposed subject matter and the reasons for and against its inclusion in the agenda.

C.       Rules

3.       The Assembly's rules of procedure, on the other hand, mention the agenda and the order of business for part-sessions.

The agenda consists of the list of subjects selected from all those on the Assembly's register for discussion at a part-session.

The order of business indicates the sittings and times, during the part-session, at which these questions will be discussed.

4.       Originally, the agenda and order of business were dealt with in two different Rules. Moreover, the Assembly's organs were not under an absolute obligation to draw up an order of business; they were required to do so "only in so far as circumstances permit". In practice however an order of business was regularly drawn up.

5.       As part of the major revision of the Rules of Procedure in 1977 (Resolution 577) the obligation to draw up an order of business was confirmed in the Rules. Since 1985 (Resolution 852) the "settlement" of the order of business and agenda are governed by the same Rule.

6.       According to Rule 16:

-       "the Bureau shall prepare for each part-session a draft Agenda which it shall submit to the Standing Committee";

-       "after consideration of the draft prepared by the Bureau, the Standing Committee shall adopt the Agenda for the next part-session. The Agenda shall be communicated to representatives and substitutes at the same time as the date of the opening or resumption of the session";

-       "the Agenda thus adopted may be altered only in accordance with the provisions of Rule 48 below".

7.       In drawing up the agenda, the Bureau relies on the indications of the committees concerning reports to be presented and on the manner in which the questions are allocated among the different part-sessions.

8.       The characteristic features of the agenda are therefore:

-       that the Assembly does not intervene in any way,

-       new items may not be added to the agenda after its adoption, except by urgent procedure.

9.       Moreover, Rule 16 stipulates:

-       "On the proposal of the Bureau, the Standing Committee shall draw up a draft order of business for each part-session, showing at which sittings the various questions on the Agenda will be discussed. This draft shall be communicated to Representatives and Substitutes at the same time as the date of the opening or resumption of the session."

-       "The draft order of business may be brought up to date by the Bureau and shall be submitted to the Assembly for approval at the first sitting of the part-session."

-       The Assembly may alter the order of business in the course of a part-session. On a motion to alter the order of business the following only shall be heard: the mover, one speaker against and a spokesman of the committee or of each of the committees concerned. Any motion to alter the same item of business a second or subsequent time during the course of the same part-session shall require a two-thirds majority of the votes cast, in order to pass."

10.       In practice, the order of business is brought up-to-date usually on the proposal of the President of the Assembly to take account of any events that may have occurred since the document was first distributed. This might consist of a question being dropped, added, postponed to the end of a sitting or a later part-session, or brought forward.

11.       The agenda often contains more items than the order of business and therefore includes items which are, in a sense, "reserve items".

12.       The general revision of the Rules of Procedure in 1985, inter alia, re-examined the procedure according to which the assembly might alter the order of business, after its adoption. Such alteration during a part-session is subject to the following provisions:

-       it shall be adopted by a majority of votes cast;

-       any motion to alter the same item of business a second or subsequent time shall require a two-thirds majority of the votes cast (Rule 16 paragraph 8).

      This last rule reflects the concern to keep the number of alterations to the order of business within reasonable limits (see Doc. 5433, paragraph 21).

D.       Practical problems concerning the approval and alteration of the Assembly's agenda and order of business and proposals

13.       Difficulties may arise:

-       for terminological reasons; a confusion has often been observed between the order of business and the agenda notably because the Assembly adopts only the order of business, whereas its agenda is adopted by the Standing Committee;

-       as a result of a misinterpretation of the Rules of Procedure; some Assembly members have thought that the only means of adding an item to the order of business was by urgent procedure whereas urgent procedure applies to the agenda and affects the order of business only indirectly;

-       for technical reasons; so as to be available for the first day of the session, the draft order of business is printed after its adoption by the Standing Committee and an updated version is published if the Bureau holds a meeting a few days before the part-session; this procedure is not possible for the Bureau meeting held on the first day of a part-session; the draft order of business does not therefore take account of any changes approved during such a Bureau meeting.

14.       The provisions relating to the approval of the agenda and order of business are clear, but it may be necessary to take steps to ensure the clear use of the terminology involved.

15.       However, your Rapporteur believes that to guard against any ambiguity the Rules of Procedure could be more precise as regards alteration of the order of business if they stipulated expressis verbis the majority required. Rule 16 paragraph 8 could therefore be worded as follows:

"8.       The Assembly may alter the order of business in the course of a part-session. On a motion to alter the order of business the following only shall be heard: the mover, one speaker against and a spokesman of the committee or each of the committees concerned. The adoption by the Assembly of such an alteration shall require a majority of the votes cast. Any motion to alter the same item of business a second or subsequent time during the course of the same part-session shall require a two-thirds majority of the votes cast2, in order to pass."

E.       Final observations

16.       The Committee on Rules of Procedure decided to present the report to the Standing Committee.

Reporting committee: Committee on Rules of Procedure

Budgetary implications for the Assembly: None

Reference to committee: Bureau decision of 1 July 1994 of which the Assembly took note on 3 October 1994 (see progress report of the Bureau and the Standing Committee, Doc. 7159)

Draft resolution unanimously adopted by the committee on 25 April 1995

Members of the committee: Sir Anthony Durant (Chairman), Mrs Lentz-Cornette, Mr Rewaj (Vice-Chairpersons), Mrs Aguiar (Alternate : Mr Poças Santos) MM. Alloncle, Bjarnason B., Borg, Cummings (Alternate: Dunnachie), Djerov, Endzins, Elo, Mrs Fernandez Ramiro, Lord Finsberg, MM. Gabrielescu, Galanos, Mrs Holand, MM. Kastanidis, Lorenzi, Loukota, Lund, Magnusson, Marten, Maruflu, Masson, Mignon, Molnár (Alternate : Eörsi), Prokes, Pukl, Rhinow, Schieder, Schloten, von Schmude (Alternate : Keller), Selva, Soldani, Thissen, Wallace, Zijlstra.

N.B. The names of those members who took part in the vote are printed in italics.

Secretary of the committee : Mr Heinrich.


1 1Only affirmative and negative votes shall count in calculating the number of votes cast (Rule 35.5).

2 1Only affirmative and negative votes shall count in calculating the number of votes cast (Rule 35.5).