A mountain of documents and hours of debate

At the Chamber of Deputies, each committee meeting is summarized in minutes that record the exchanges between deputies, between deputies and members of the government, or possibly with other guests, as well as the decisions taken. Many minutes also include annexed documents related to the meeting. Each bill or legislative proposal – including every proposed revision of the constitution – is assigned a number upon submission, to which all related documents are subsequently linked. These may include opinions from the Council of State or professional chambers, government positions, and the final report of a committee containing the text of the future law as submitted for a plenary vote in the Chamber. These documents are referred to as “parliamentary documents.” There is a third category of documents: the public session debates, which are fully transcribed in the official report known as the Chamberblietchen.
The drafting of the revised Constitution spanned over two decades and generated an intense volume of documentation, including committee minutes, parliamentary documents, and session reports. Since 1999, the Committee on Institutions and Constitutional Revision met 328 times in the context of its constitutional work.
The proposal to introduce a new Constitution (parliamentary document number 6030), submitted in 2009 by deputy Paul-Henri Meyers, comprises 32 documents. The four subsequent proposals – 7575 (rapporteur: Léon Gloden), 7700 (rapporteur: Mars Di Bartolomeo), 7755 (rapporteur: Simone Beissel), and 7777 (rapporteur: Charel Margue) – which ultimately led to the revised Constitution, contain 21, 18, 14, and 8 documents respectively, totaling 93. The debates held in plenary session are included in the minutes of the various sessions, and the Chamber additionally published 4 special editions for the general public.