Jump to content

Constitutional Assembly of Latvia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by InternetArchiveBot (talk | contribs) at 00:39, 22 December 2023 (Rescuing 2 sources and tagging 0 as dead.) #IABot (v2.0.9.5). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Constitutional Assembly of the Republic of Latvia

Satversmes sapulce
History
FoundedMay 1, 1920 (1920-05-01)
DisbandedNovember 7, 1922 (1922-11-07)
Preceded byCreation of parliament
Succeeded by1st Saeima
Leadership
Secretary
Roberts Ivanovs
Structure
Politics of Latvia
Constitution
Government
Saeima
Elections
Political parties
Administrative divisions
Foreign relations
Part of a series on the
History of Latvia
Ancient Latvia
Middle Ages
Early modern period
National Awakening
Modern Latvia
Chronology
flag Latvia portal

The Constitutional Assembly of Latvia (Latvian: Satversmes sapulce) was independent Latvia's first elected legislative body. Its main task was creating the constitution of Latvia, the Satversme, which is still in effect to this day. The Speaker of Assembly was Jānis Čakste, who later became the first President of Latvia. The assembly functioned from May 1, 1920, until November 7, 1922, when the 1st Saeima convened.

Electing the Constitutional Assembly

On August 19, 1919, People's Council of Latvia issued the law about elections of Constitutional Assembly. Elections were open to male and female citizens who were older than 21, no minimal vote percentage was set, so many small parties were elected.

After the end of Latvian War of Independence in January, 1920 Constitutional Assembly elections were quickly organized and held on April 17–18, 1920 when the people of Latvia voted in universal, equal, direct and proportional elections. 25 parties competed for 150 seats.

84.9% of eligible voters participated (677, 084 people). There were 57 candidate lists covering 5 regional constituencies and 16 parties won seats in the Assembly.[1] One hundred fifty members, including 5 women, were elected. The most successful parties were the Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party (57 seats), Latvian Farmers' Union (26 seats) and Latgalian Farmers Party (17 seats). The remainder of the seats went mostly to ethnic minorities — Committee of the German Baltic Parties, Democrats Union, Polish Party of Latvia and the Worker's Party, Jewish parties and others.

The first meeting of the Assembly took place on May 1, 1920, at Riga, in the House of the Livonian Noble Corporation which houses Latvian Parliament up to this day. The Constitutional Assembly drafted the basic law of the state — the Satversme — as well as other laws. It adopted a law on agrarian reform, a law on the election of the Saeima (Parliament), laws about the State flag, State coat of arms, national anthem and other laws. The Constitutional Assembly had 21 standing committees. It held 213 plenary sessions and adopted 205 laws and 291 regulations having the force of law.

List of deputies

[2]

References

  1. ^ Satversmes sapulce
  2. ^ "Saeimas Stenogrammas - 1920.g. - Nr.2". Archived from the original on 2019-05-15. Retrieved 2021-03-21.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Constitutional_Assembly_of_Latvia&oldid=1191180317"