Art. 20. The sittings of both chambers are public. Nevertheless, they may resolve themselves into secret committees; the chamber of peers on the demand of ten members, that of deputies on the demand of twenty-five. The government also may demand secret committees for any communications it may have to make. In all cases deliberations and votes can take place only in a public sitting.
Art. 21. The Emperor may prorogue, adjourn, or dissolve, the chamber of representatives. The proclamation, that pronounces the dissolution, convokes the electoral colleges for a new election, and indicates the re-assembling of representatives in six months at the latest.
Art. 22. During the interval between the sessions of the chamber of representatives, or in case of the dissolution of this chamber, the chamber of peers cannot assemble.
Art. 23. The government has the proposal of the law: the chambers may propose amendments: if these amendments be not adopted by the government, the chambers are bound to vote for or against the law, in the form in which it was proposed.
Art. 24. The chambers have the power of inviting the government to propose a law on a given subject, and to draw up what appears to them proper to be inserted in the law. This demand may be made by either of the two chambers.
Art. 25. When a draught of a law is adopted by one of the two chambers, it is carried to the other; and, if it be approved there, it is carried to the Emperor.
Art. 26. No written discourse, except the reports of committees, the reports of ministers on the laws that are presented, and the accounts that are delivered, can be read in either of the chambers.
HEAD II.
Of the electoral colleges, and the mode of election.
Art. 27. The electoral colleges of the departments and circles are retained, conformably to the decree of the senate of the 16th of Thermidor, year 10, excepting the following modifications.