As parliaments develop more channels for citizens to submit their views, many are faced with the challenge of having to process large volumes of comments and submissions within what often are tight political timings and unhelpful processes. This seminar provides good practice examples from New Zealand and Scotland. ...

Alisson Bruno from the Brazilian Senate describes the “Legislative Idea” tool that citizens have used to submit more than 100,000 proposals for new laws; and the “Interactive Events” tool for suggesting questions that Senators can ask to witnesses during public hearings. Rodolfo Vaz describes the ePoll system in the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies. ...

Just like elsewhere, parliamentary technologies are constantly evolving. Several emerging trends are transforming the way legislative bodies could operate, including cloud computing technologies, which are being used to store, manage, and process large amounts of data generated by parliamentary activities. ...