A/HRC/18/46 the National Assembly is five years and ends on the day when the new National Assembly takes office. The members of the National Assembly are elected for 21 multi-member constituencies corresponding to the country’s provinces, using a proportional representation system. 37. The term of the Senate is six years. Of the 61 members of the Senate, 57 are elected by Commune/Sangkat Councillors while two others are elected by the National Assembly. The remaining two are appointed by the King. Both of these houses have a commission structure and each of them has nine commissions. All of these commissions are chaired by members of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party. 38. The Cambodian Parliament has faced the same institutional and structural upheavals faced by the country as a whole in the last 40 or so years. Like the judiciary, Parliament and parliamentary culture had to be rebuilt from scratch following the systematic destruction of all democratic institutions during the Khmer Rouge period. The structure of Parliament and its physical facilities are now as good as any in a developing country and in many respects well above the average. Similar to many other parliaments, the Cambodian Parliament has oversight, legislative and representative functions. 39. Parliamentary activities as a whole – from legislating to overseeing the executive – cover the entire spectrum of human rights. Such activities have a direct impact on the ability of the people to enjoy their rights. With a view to focusing on human rights issues, the National Assembly and the Senate have each established a Commission for this purpose. The Commission on Human Rights of the Senate has received more than 300 complaints of human rights violations from members of the general public; in more than 100 of those cases it has received responses from relevant Government departments. The Commission has carried out investigations in about 40 cases in recent years. The Human Rights Commission of the National Assembly received a total of 1,158 complaints from members of the public between 2006 and 2010, the vast majority of them related to land disputes. Upon receiving these complaints, the Commission has taken action on a good number of them and written to relevant Government departments. The total number of responses received between 2006 and 2010 was about 250. The Commission has also examined various draft laws concerning the protection and promotion of human rights. 40. While the Special Rapporteur was encouraged by the progress made by the country in developing parliamentary practices within a relatively short period of time, there remain a number of shortcomings in the workings of Parliament in general and the National Assembly in particular. B. Effectiveness of the Senate 41. Generally speaking, the parliamentary practices in the Senate are more advanced and more in tune with the principles of democracy and transparency. There is a great deal the National Assembly could learn from the practices of the Senate. The various commissions of the Senate, including the Commission on Human Rights, have been able to discharge their responsibilities more effectively. Altogether the nine Commissions of the Senate have conducted 24 fact-finding missions per year on average. However, the Senate itself has admitted that “the time given for scrutinising legal texts is too short”. Further, the consultation on draft laws with concerned stakeholders “is not yet very transparent”.2 2 12 Cambodia, Secretary-General of the Senate, “A report on the self-assessment of the Senate on the Kingdom of Cambodia after 10 years of operation and development” (Phnom Penh, 2011), p. 24.