TITLE VI. OF THE LEGISLATIVE POWER
Article 89
The Parliament is composed of two chambers: the National Assembly and the Senate.
The Parliament exercises the legislative power and controls the action of the executive.
The means of information and of control of the Parliament over the action of the Government are:
- the interpellation;
the written question; the oral question; the current issues; the hearing in commission; the parliamentary inquiry.
Article 90
The members of the National Assembly bear the title of Deputy. They are elected by universal direct suffrage. Each Deputy is the representative of the entire Nation and any imperative mandate is null.
Each Deputy is elected with his substitute.
The members of the Senate bear the title of Senator. They are elected by indirect suffrage by the councils of the local collectivities. They represent the territorial collectivities of the Republic. The Senate exercises, in addition to its legislative function, that of moderator and of council of the Nation.
Article 91
The functions of Deputy and Senator give right to the reimbursement of transport expenses and to the payment of the indemnities for which the rate and the conditions of attribution are established by the law.
Article 92
The duration of the mandate of the Deputies is five years.
They are reeligible.
The duration of the mandate of the Senators is six years. The Senate is renewable every three years by half by drawing of lots.
The mandates of Deputy and Senator can be prolonged by the Constitutional Court in the case of exceptionally grave circumstances impeding the normal development of the elections.
The Constitutional Court is referred to the matter by the President of the Republic.
Article 93
The mandates of the Deputies and the Senators commence on the second Tuesday following their election. Each chamber of the Parliament meets of plain right. If this meeting takes place outside the periods specified for the ordinary sessions, an extraordinary session is opened of plain right for a duration of fifteen days.
The mandate of the Deputies ends with the entering into its function of the new Assembly. The elections take place twenty days, at least, and fifty days, at most, before the expiration of the mandate of the Deputies.
Article 94
The law determines:
- the electoral circumscriptions;
the number of seats and their division by circumscriptions; the mode of the ballot; the conditions for the organization of new elections in the case of vacancy of a seat, as well as the regime of the ineligibilities; the statute of the Deputies and of the Senators.
Article 95
The mandate of Deputy and of Senator is incompatible with any other function of public character. The other incompatibilities are established by the law.
In the case of incompatibility, the Deputy is replaced by his substitute.
At the end of the incompatibility, the Deputy recovers his seat in the National Assembly.
Article 96
The candidates to the legislative or senatorial elections must:
- be of Congolese nationality;
be aged twenty-five years at least, for the Deputies, and forty-five at least, for the Senators; reside on the national territory at the moment of the presentation of the candidatures; enjoy all their civil and political rights; not have been condemned for crimes or misdemeanors.
Article 97
The candidates to the legislative or senatorial elections are presented by the political parties or by political groups.
They can also present themselves as independent candidates.
Article 98
The Deputies and the Senators lose their mandate if they are the object of a condemnation to a penalty of firm imprisonment for voluntary crimes or misdemeanors.
An elected Deputy or an elected Senator, presented by a political party or political group who resign from his party or from his political group, in the course of the legislature, loses his status of Deputy or Senator.
In the two preceding cases, it proceeds to partial elections.
Any ineligibility at the time of the elections known later, as well as the incompatibilities and the incapacities specified by the law, causes the loss of the mandate of Deputy or of Senator.
Article 99
The Constitutional Court decides on the receivability of the candidatures and on the validity of the election of the Deputies and of the Senators.
Article 100
It may not proceed to a partial election in the last semester of the legislature.
Article 101
No member of the Parliament may be prosecuted, or investigated, detained or judged for the opinions or votes emitted by him in the exercise of his functions. No Deputy, no Senator may, during the duration of the sessions, be prosecuted or arrested without the authorization of the chamber to which he belongs, except in the case of flagrante delicto, of authorized prosecutions or of definitive condemnation.
No Deputy, no Senator may, outside of the sessions, be prosecuted or arrested without the authorization of the Bureau of the chamber to which he belongs, except in the case of flagrant delicto, of authorized prosecutions or of definitive condemnation.
Article 102
The right to vote of the Deputies and of the Senators is personal.
The internal regulations of the National Assembly and of the Senate may authorize, exceptionally, the delegation of the vote. In this case, no one may receive the delegation of more than one mandate.
Article 103
The Parliament meets of plain right in three ordinary sessions per year on the convocation of the Presidents of the two chambers.
The first session opens on 2 March, the second on 2 July, the third on 15 October.
When the Parliament meets in Congress, the Bureau of the National Assembly presides the debates.
Each session has a duration of sixty days, at most.
If 2 March, 2 July or 15 October is a holidays, the opening of the session takes place on the first business day that follows.
Article 104
The agenda for each session is established by the conference of the Presidents.
Article 105
Each chamber of the Parliament is convoked in extraordinary session by its President on a determined agenda, at the demand of the President of the Republic or of the absolute majority of its members. The closure intervenes when the chamber has exhausted the agenda for which it was convoked and, at the latest, fifteen days counting from the date of the beginning of its meeting.
Article 106
The National Assembly and the Senate are each one directed by a Bureau that includes:
- a President;
two Vice-Presidents; two secretaries; two treasurers.
Article 107
Each chamber of the Parliament adopts the internal regulations which determine its functioning and establish the legislative procedure and the modalities of control of the governmental action.
The internal regulations of each chamber have the force of law.
The President of the National Assembly opens and closes the ordinary and extraordinary sessions of the National Assembly.
The President of the Senate opens and closes the ordinary and extraordinary sessions of the Senate.
Article 108
The sittings of the two chambers of the Parliament are public. The complete record of the debates is published in the journal of debates. Nevertheless, the National Assembly or the Senate may sit in closed session at the demand of the President of the Republic, of the President of each chamber or of one-third of its members.
Article 109
In the case of vacancy of the Presidency of the National Assembly or of the Senate because of death, resignation or any other cause, the concerned chamber elects a new President within the fifteen days that follow the vacancy if it is in session; in the contrary case, it meets of plain right within the conditions established by the internal regulations.
In the case of necessity, the other members of the Bureau are to be replaced in conformity with the provisions of the interior regulations of each chamber.
Article 110
The Parliament has the legislative initiative and alone votes the law.
It consents to the tax, votes the budget of the State and controls its execution. It is referred to the matter of the bill of the law of finance at the opening of the session of October.
It has the initiative of the referendums, concurrently with the President of the Republic.
Article 111
The following are of the domain of the law:
- citizenship, the civic rights and the fundamental guarantees granted to the citizens in the exercise of the public freedoms, the constraints imposed, in the interest of the national defense and of the public security on the citizens, on their persons and on their assets;
the nationality, the status and the capacity of persons, the matrimonial regimes, inheritance and gifts; the determination of crimes, of misdemeanors and of contraventions as well as of the penalties applicable to them, the organization of justice and of the procedure to be followed before the jurisdictions and for the execution of the decisions of justice, the statute of the magistrature, and the juridical regime of the Superior Council of the Magistrature, of the ministerial offices and of the liberal professions; the base, the rate and the modalities for recovering the taxes of any nature, the loans and the financial engagements of the State; the regime for the emission of the currency; the creation of the public establishments; the regime of the referendum consultations; the electoral divisions; amnesty; the general statute of the public function; the administrative organization of the territory; the free administration of local collectivities, their competences and their resources; the spatial organization of the territory the right to work, the syndical right and the regimes of social security; the nationalizations, the denationalizations of enterprises and the transfers of property of enterprises from the public sector to the private sector; the plan for economic and social development; the environment and the conservation of the natural resources; the regime of property, of real rights and of civil and commercial obligations; the regime of the political parties, of the non-governmental associations and organizations; the approval of the international treaties and agreements; the organization of the national defense; the administration and the alienation of the domain of the State; insurance, savings and credit; the regime of transport, of communication and of information; the penitentiary regime.
The law determines equally the fundamental principles:
- of teaching
of health; of science and of technology; of industry; of culture, of the arts and of sports; of agriculture, of animal husbandry, of fishing and of the waters and forests.
Article 112
The laws of finance determine the receipts and the expenses of the State. The laws of regulation control the execution of the laws of finance, under reserve of the ulterior audit of the accounts of the Nation by the Court of Accounts and of Budgetary Discipline.
The program laws established the objectives of the economic and social action of the State, of the organization of the production and of the national defense.
Article 113
Matters, other than those that are of the domain of the law, are of the domain of regulation.
