Chamber of Deputies (Ottoman Empire)

The Chamber of Deputies (Ottoman Turkish: مجلس مبعوثان Meclis-i meb'ūs̱ān; Turkish: Meclis-i Mebusân or Mebuslar Meclisi) of the Ottoman Empire was the lower house of the General Assembly, the Ottoman Parliament. Unlike the upper house, the Senate, the members of the Chamber of Deputies were elected by the general Ottoman populace, although suffrage was limited to men of a certain financial standing, among other restrictions that varied over the Chamber's lifetime.

First Constitutional Era (1876–1878)

In the First Constitutional Era, which only lasted for two years from 1876 to 1878, the initial selection of Deputies was made by the directly elected Administrative Councils in the provinces, who acted as an electoral college for Deputies and also as local governments. The first Chamber met on 19 March 1877. Its main power during this period was its right to vote on annual budgets submitted by the Council of Ministers. All members of the parliament, including those in the Chamber, had a right to free expression and were immune from arrest and criminal prosecution during their term, unless their chamber voted to waive this right for a member.

After the establishment of the whole parliament, General Assembly (Turkish: Meclis-i Umumî), in the provinces, the members selected the deputies from within the General Assembly to form the Chamber of Deputies (Turkish: Meclis-i Mebusan) in the capital, Constantinople. The Chamber of Deputies had 130 members and reflected the distribution of the millets in the empire. After the first elections, a sort of trial to populate the Chamber for the first time, there were 71 Muslim millet representatives, 44 Christians millet representatives, and 4 Jewish millet representatives. After the second elections, there were 69 Muslim representatives and 46 representatives of other millets (Jews, Greeks, Armenians, etc.).