What does Parliament do?
The primary functions of Parliament
are to make laws, to represent the people, and to provide scrutiny
and oversight of government.
The Parliament of Nauru can be
described as a Westminster-style Parliament, in the sense that
Nauru has an essentially parliamentary-style government, where
government is formed by a majority of members of Parliament and
government sits in Parliament. However, the Parliament of Nauru
differs in some important respects from the British
Parliament at Westminster. Some of the most significant differences
are: that the powers of the Parliament of Nauru are expressly
limited by a written Constitution, and that
many of the conventions or customary practices that apply in the
British Parliament at Westminster, particularly those that are
intertwined with the two party political system, do not apply in
Nauru.
One of the unique features of
Nauru's political and parliamentary system is that the President is
both head of government and head of state. The President is chosen
by Parliament from amongst members of Parliament.
Like other systems of parliamentary
government, Nauru has a loose separation of powers: the state has
three institutional branches or arms - the Executive (President and
Cabinet), the Legislature (Parliament) and the Judicature (Supreme
Court).
In addition to law making and other
business that takes place during Parliament sittings, much of the
work of members of Parliament takes place in Parliamentary
Committees. You can read more about the work of committees
from the Committees
page.
Members of Parliament are involved
in inter-parliamentary activities, and often attend regional or
international workshops and conferences on issues relevant to their
parliamentary work.