Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known internationally as the UK Parliament, British Parliament, or Westminster Parliament, and domestically simply as Parliament, is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and the British Overseas Territories. It alone possesses legislative supremacy and thereby ultimate power over all other political bodies in the UK and the overseas territories. Parliament is bicameral but has three parts, consisting of the Sovereign (the Queen-in-Parliament), the House of Lords, and the House of Commons (the primary chamber). The two houses meet in the Palace of Westminster in the City of Westminster, one of the inner boroughs of the capital city, London.
Bicameralism
In the German, Indian, and Pakistani systems, the upper houses (the Bundesrat, the Rajya Sabha, and the Senate respectively) are even more closely linked with the federal system, being appointed or elected directly by the governments or legislatures of each German or Indian state, or Pakistani province. This was also the case in the United States before the Seventeenth Amendment was adopted. Because of this coupling to the executive branch, German legal doctrine does not treat the "Bundesrat" as the second chamber of a bicameral system formally. Rather, it sees the "Bundesrat" and the "Bundestag" as independent constitutional bodies. Only the directly elected "Bundestag" is considered the parliament. In the German "Bundesrat", the various "Länder" have between three and six votes; thus, while the less populated states have a lower weight, they still have a stronger voting power than would be the case in a system based "purely" on population, as the most populous "Land" currently has about 27 times the population of the least populous. The Indian Upper House does not have the states represented equally, but on the basis of their population.