File n° 71

I. –  the SITTING report department

The publication of a verbatim report provides each citizen with the possibility of being informed on the progress of parliamentary proceedings and gives real meaning to the notion of the public nature of the plenary sittings. According to article 59 of the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly, the verbatim report represents the official record of the sitting.

The debate drafters replace each other in plenary sitting every quarter of an hour at the foot of the speakers’ rostrum. During this period they take notes which will allow them to relate all aspects of the debate: the speech of the main speaker, interruptions made by M.P.s they must identify, movement or activity during the sitting. Once they return to their office, they will have the official recording of the sitting available on their computer. They then draft their report on a word processor.

The transposition of remarks which are often improvised into written language must respect the thoughts of the speaker but also requires a certain amount of editing to eliminate the inaccuracies and awkwardness of spoken language. As regards the legislative part of the debates, the verbatim report must also follow the rules of the various procedures.

The work of the drafters is reread and, if necessary, corrected by the heads of the sitting (director or deputy director) who in turn, have the responsibility of the report of the plenary sitting they attended.

Speakers may see their speeches before they are published and may make purely formal modifications without changing the content, as is laid down in article 19 of the General Instructions of the Bureau.

The verbatim report of a sitting is published by fifteen-minute segment on the internet site of the National Assembly within four hours of the sitting to which it refers. It is placed on line in its entirety on average within six hours of the end of the morning and afternoon sittings and on the day following night sittings.

It is simultaneously transmitted electronically to the Journal Officiel which prints it, in accordance with article 33 of the Constitution which states that “a verbatim report of the debates shall be published in the Journal Officiel”. It is also published in an internal document which is distributed, on average, within twenty-four hours of the end of the sitting.

The articles of the Government and members' bills, amendments and sub-amendments examined during a plenary sitting are included in a special supplement. This supplement can be viewed along with the electronic version of the report and is added to the printed version.

II. –  the COMMITTEE report department

This department draws up, where necessary, the reports of meetings of commissions, fact-finding missions and “delegations”. This mainly involves the hearings of members of the Government and of various personalities but may also concern, in the case of certain bills, the committee debates dealing with the bill and amendments to be made to it.

The drafters are present at the meetings and replace each other after a period which may vary between thirty minutes and one and a half hours, according to the circumstances. They then draw up their report with the help of the notes they have taken and of the sound recording made during the meeting. They must be able to work in tense conditions as their job is generally carried out under pressure.

The work of the drafters is reread and, if necessary, corrected by the director or one of the deputy directors of the department. It is then transmitted to the secretariat of the committee concerned which checks it and proceeds to its publication, under its own responsibility, on the internet site of the National Assembly. Certain extracts may also be reproduced in printed reports.

III. –  RECRUITMENT

Debate drafters, whose salary scale is similar to that of clerks, are recruited by a competitive examination which aims at assessing their ability to take notes and to draft a reliable and readable report quickly with the help of a digital recording.

They may be posted to either the Sitting Report Department or to the Committee Report Department and they then work in turns for each.