Title III. Of the Legislative Power
Article 45
The legislative power belongs to the Parliament.
Article 46
The Parliament is composed of two (2) representative Assemblies: the National Assembly and the Senate.
Article 47
The Deputies to the National Assembly are elected for five (5) years by direct suffrage.
The Senators are elected for six (6) years by indirect suffrage. They assure the representation of the territorial collectivities of the Republic. The Mauritanians resident abroad are represented in the Senate. The Senators are renewed by thirds (1/3) every two (2) years.
All Mauritanian citizens enjoying their civil and political rights [and] at least twenty-five (25) years old are eligible to be [a] Deputy and at least thirty-five (35) years old [are eligible] to be a Senator.
Article 48
An organic law establishes the conditions for the election of the members of Parliament, their number, their indemnity, the conditions of eligibility, [and] the regime of the ineligibilities and of the incompatibilities.
It also establishes the conditions in which the persons named to assure the replacement of the Deputies or the Senators in the case of vacancy of a seat, are elected [,] until the general or partial renewal of the Assembly to which they belong.
Article 49
The Constitutional Council decides in the case of dispute [contestation] concerning the regularity of the election of the parliamentarians or concerning their eligibility.
Article 50
No member of the Parliament may be prosecuted, pursued, arrested, detained or judged because of the opinions or the votes emitted by him during the exercise of his functions.
No member of the Parliament, during the sessions, may be prosecuted or arrested in [a] criminal or [a] correctional matter without the authorization of the Assembly to which he belongs except in case of flagrante delicto.
No member of the Parliament may be arrested, outside [a] session, except with the authorization of the Bureau of the Assembly to which he belongs, except in case of flagrante delicto, of authorized prosecution or of definitive condemnation.
The detention or the prosecution of a member of the Parliament is suspended if the Assembly to which he belongs requires it.
Article 51
All imperative mandates are null.
The right to vote of the members of the Parliament is personal.
The organic law can authorize exceptionally the delegation of [the] vote. In this case, no one may receive the delegation for more than one mandate.
Any deliberation outside the time of the sessions or outside the place of the sitting is null. The President of the Republic can demand the Constitutional Council to declare this nullity.
The sittings of the National Assembly and of the Senate are public. The report of the debates is published in the Journal Officiel [Official Gazette].
Each one of the Assemblies can sit in closed session at the demand of the Government or of one-fourth (1/4) of its members present.
Article 52
The Parliament meets of plain right in two (2) ordinary sessions each year. The first session opens on the first business [ouvrable] day of the month of October. The second session [opens on] the first business day of the month of April. The duration of each session may not exceed four (4) months.
Article 53
The Parliament can meet in an extraordinary session at the demand of the President of the Republic or of the majority of the members of the National Assembly for a determined agenda [ordre du jour]. The length of an extraordinary session may not exceed one month.
The extraordinary sessions are opened and closed by a decree of the President of the Republic.
Article 54
The members of the Government have access to the two Assemblies. They are heard when they demand it. They may be assisted by commissioners of the Government.
Article 55
The President of the National Assembly is elected for the duration of the legislature.
The President of the Senate is elected after each partial renewal.
