Senators by right (, , ) were non-elected members of the

Belgian Senate The Senate ( ; ; ) is one of the two chambers of the Bicameralism, bicameral Belgian Federal Parliament, Federal Parliament of Belgium, the other being the Chamber of Representatives (Belgium), Chamber of Representatives. It is considered to be ...

. If the ruling monarch of Belgium had any children, all of them who were above 18 years old could opt to sit in the Senate, as senators by right; if the current monarch had no offspring, the descendants of the branch of the royal house called on to reign were senators by right instead. Theoretically, senators by right were entitled to vote in the Senate once they reached the age of 21. However, by constitutional convention they did not use this right. Their presence was also disregarded when calculating the

quorum A quorum is the minimum number of members of a group necessary to constitute the group at a meeting. In a deliberative assembly (a body that uses parliamentary procedure, such as a legislature), a quorum is necessary to conduct the business of ...

; to reach the quorum, 36 of the 71 elected senators had to be present. Until 2013, Prince Philippe, Princess Astrid and Prince Laurent were senators by right. When Prince Philippe became King, there were no senators by right. As part of the

sixth Belgian state reform The sixth State reform in Belgium, state reform in the federal kingdom of Belgium is the result after the 2010–2011 Belgian government formation, with 541 days of negotiations, the longest ever in Belgium and possibly the world. The agreement was ...

, the function of senators by right was abolished effective as of the May 2014 elections.

List

References

+ {{Belgium-royal-stub