Conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers of the Commonwealth (CSPOC):
The Prime Minister recently inaugurated the 28th Conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers of the Commonwealth (CSPOC) in New Delhi, highlighting India’s commitment to sharing open-source tech platforms with the Global South.
- It brings together the Speakers and Presiding Officers of the national parliaments of the independent sovereign states of the Commonwealth.
- It was created in 1969 as an initiative of the then Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada, Lucien Lamoureux.
- Since its inception, Canada has provided CSPOC with a secretariat to support its activities.
- The Conference is an independent group and has no formal affiliation with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, the Commonwealth Secretariat, or the Commonwealth Heads of Government.
- CSPOC operates on a two-year cycle, holding a conference of the full membership every two years, usually early in January, and a meeting of the Standing Committee at the same time the intervening year.
- The Conference aims to:
- Maintain, foster, and encourage impartiality and fairness on the part of Speakers and Presiding Officers of Parliaments;
- Promote knowledge and understanding of parliamentary democracy in its various forms; and
- Develop parliamentary institutions
- Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 56 independent countries, almost all of which were formerly under British rule.
- It differs from other international bodies such as the United Nations or the World Trade Organization.
- It has no formal constitution or bylaw
- The members have no legal or formal obligation to one another; they are held together by shared traditions, institutions, and experiences as well as by economic self-interest.
- Commonwealth action is based upon consultation between members, which is conducted through correspondence and through conversations in meetings.
