Senator for life
A
senator for life is a member of the
senate elected or appointed for lifetime.
As of 2006, a few members of the
Italian Senate are lifetime senators. Several South American countries abolished lifetime membership for former Presidents.
Overview
In
Italy, a
senatore a vita is a member of the
Italian Senate appointed by the
President of the Italian Republic "for outstanding patriotic merits in the social, scientific, artistic or literary field". Former Presidents of the Republic are
ex officio life senators. A limit of five senators for life, excluding former Presidents, is established by the Italian constitution. They have the same equal power of elected senators, including the right to vote and being elected to the Presidency of the Senate. In addition, their mandate does not end with the dissolution of a Senate, allowing them to sit in any elected Senate for their whole lifetime.
Every President of the Italian Republic has made at least one appointment of a senator for life, with the exception of
Oscar Luigi Scalfaro. The president who appointed the highest number of senators for life was
Luigi Einaudi, who made eight nominations during his mandate.
List of Italian life senators
Those currently in office are in bold.
As of 2006, there are seven of them.
Members of the
Canadian Senate used to be appointed for life. Since the Constitution Act of
1965, however, newly-appointed members face mandatory retirement upon reaching the age of
seventy-five.
The
constitutions of a number of countries in
South America have granted former presidents the right to be senator for life (
senador vitalicio). Most of these countries have since excised these provisions as they are increasingly seen as antidemocratic. The
Constitution of Paraguay still has such a provision, but former presidents are permitted only to speak and not vote. Probably the most familiar case is that of Chilean dictator
Augusto Pinochet (1998-2002) whose
parliamentary immunity protected him from prosecution for
human rights violations until the
Chilean Supreme Court revoked it in
2000.
*In
Venezuela, the lifetime senate seat was extant from
1961 to
1999. The former
Presidents who held this position were:
Rómulo Betancourt (1964-1981),
Raúl Leoni (1969-1972),
Rafael Caldera (1974-1994, 1999),
Carlos Andrés Pérez (1979-1989, 1994-1996),
Luis Herrera Campins (1984-1999) and
Jaime Lusinchi (1989-1999). The senate was abolished with the
1999 constitution.
*In
Peru, the practice was extant from
1979 to
1993.
Francisco Morales Bermúdez,
Fernando Belaúnde Terry and
Alan García Pérez were the only lifetime senators until the abolition of the senate in 1993 and the introduction of
a unicameral parliament.
*In
Chile, under the
1980 Constitution, two ex-
Presidents have become senators-for-life:
Augusto Pinochet Ugarte (1998-2002) and
Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle (2000-2006).
[Mr. Frei retained his senate seat by being democratically elected in the December 2005 parliamentary elections and is currently President of the Senate.] The provision was abolished by constitutional reforms in 2005.
The senators of the
Empire of Brazil were appointed for lifetime (1826-1889). The emperor appointed the senator for each consituency from a list of three, indirectly elected, candidates. For details, see
Senate of Brazil: History [For the list of senators, see :pt:Lista de senadores do Brasil].
In
France, during the
Third Republic, the
Senate was composed of 300 members, 75 of which were
inamovible ("unremovable"). Introduced in
1875, the status was suppressed for new senators in
1884, but maintained for those in office.
Émile Deshayes de Marcère, the last surviving
sénateur inamovible, died in
1918. Overall there had been 116 lifetime senators.
[Les sénateurs inamovibles]*
Lord Temporal*
Lord Spiritual*
Term limits
*
Senato.it: Senatori a vita - current Italian lifetime senators
