Upper House

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. An upper house is one of two chambers of a bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the lower house. In parliamentary systems the upper house is frequently seen as an advisory or "revising" chamber, for this reason its powers of direct action are often reduced in some way. It is the role of a revising chamber to scrutinise legislation that may have been drafted over-hastily in the lower house, and to suggest amendments that the lower house may nevertheless reject if it wishes to. An example is the British House of Lords, which under the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 may not stop, but only delay bills. It is sometimes seen as having a special role of safeguarding the Constitution of the United Kingdom and important civil liberties against ill-considered change.