constituteproject.org • Budget bills • Extraordinary legislative sessions • Length of legislative sessions PDF generated: 23 May 2016, 16:14 Article 84 The Senate meets of plain right in two ordinary sessions per year. The duration of each session is established at sixty days. The first session begins on the first Tuesday of May and the second, consecrated principally to the adoption of the law of finance, the third Tuesday of October. It may equally meet in special session by convocation of the Government. Its agenda is then limitatively established by the decree of convocation taken in the Council of Ministers. When the National Assembly is not sitting, the Senate may only discuss issues referred to it by the Government for its opinion, excluding all legislative bills. • Eligibility for cabinet • Immunity of legislators • Outside professions of legislators • Removal of individual legislators Article 85 The provisions of Articles 71 to 79 are applicable, by analogy, to the Senate. CHAPTER III: Of the Relations Between the Government and the Parliament • Standing committees Article 86 • Initiation of general legislation The initiative of the laws belongs concurrently to the Prime Minister, the Deputies and the Senators. • Powers of cabinet The bills of law are deliberated in the Council of Ministers and presented to the Bureau of one of the two Assemblies. The agenda of the Assemblies includes by priority and on the agenda established by the Government the discussion of the bills of law presented to the Bureau of the National Assembly or to that of the Senate by the Prime Minister. • Budget bills The proposals of law and amendments presented by the parliamentarians are brought to the cognizance of the Government which is provided with, to formulate its observations, a time period of thirty days for the proposals and fifteen days for the amendments. At the expiration of this time period, the Assembly before which the proposals or the amendments were presented proceeds to the examination of them with a view to their adoption. The proposals or amendments are not receivable when their adoption will have as consequence, in the framework of the current budgetary year, either the diminution of the public resources or the aggravation of the charges of the State, except in the matter of the law of finance. If it appears, in the course of the legislative procedure, that a proposal or an amendment is not of the domain of the law, the Government may oppose the receivability. In the case of disagreement between the Government and the National Assembly or the Senate, the High Constitutional Court, at the demand of the Prime Minister or of the President of one or the other Parliamentary Assembly, decides within a time period of eight days. Two weeks of sitting of four, at least, are reserved for the examination of the texts and to the debates of which the Government demands the inscription in the agenda. Madagascar 2010 Page 21