Concluding Observations

Although legislatures have different names from one nation to another – ‘Parliament’ in the United Kingdom, ‘National Assembly’ in France, ‘Duma’ in Russia, ‘Diet’ in Japan and ‘Congress’ in the United States, for example – from the variety of articles that together comprise this volume it is apparent that almost all such bodies do in fact have one thing in common, namely, ‘They are constitutionally designated for giving assent to binding measures of public policy, that assent being given on behalf of a political community that extends beyond the government élite responsible for formulating those measures’. ¹