Online Encyclopedia

QUORUM (Lat. for " of whom ")

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V22, Page 764 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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QUORUM (
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Lat. for " of whom ")
  , in its general sense, a
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term denoting the number of members of any
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body of persons whose presence is requisite in order that business may be validly transacted by the body or its acts be legal . The term is de-rived from the wording of the commission appointing justices of the peace which appoints them all, jointly and severally to keep the peace in the county named . It also runs— " We have also assigned you, and every two or more of you (of whom [quorum], any one of you the aforesaid A, B, C, D, &c., we will shall be one) our justices to inquire the truth more fully," whence the justices so-named were usually called justices of the quorum . The term was afterwards applied to all justices, and subsequently by transference, to the number of members of a body necessary for the transaction of its business . No general
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rule can be laid down as to the number of members of which a quorum should consist; its
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size is usually prescribed by definite enactment or provision; it is entirely a
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matter for self-constituted bodies as to what their quorum shall be, and it usually depends on the size of the body . In bodies which owe their existence to an act of the legislature, the necessary quorum is usually fixed by
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statute . In England, in the House of Lords, three form a quorum, though on a division there must be
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thirty members
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present . In the House of
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Commons,
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forty members, including the
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Speaker, form a quorum . The quorum of a
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standing committee of the House of Lords is seven, and of the House of Commons, twenty .

End of Article: QUORUM (Lat. for " of whom ")
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