A constituency is a political, military or administrative division of a territory
The etymological root of circumscription is found in the Latin word circumscriptio . The concept allows refers to the act and result of circumscribing : demarcating something, limiting it to certain limits.
An official division
The idea of constituency is usually used to name a political, military, administrative division, etc. of a territory . In this way we can speak of an electoral district or a judicial district , for example.
electoral district
An electoral district , also mentioned as an electoral district , is an area that is established for the election of rulers or members of a legislative body. Those who reside in said territorial subdivision, and meet the requirements established by law (such as being of a certain age), can vote in the electoral processes that take place in the place and in this way elect their representatives.
Suppose that, according to the electoral system of a country, those who live in a certain electoral constituency have the right to elect a deputy to represent them in Parliament . Thus, the deputy in question will reach this legislative body through the votes of the inhabitants of the constituency, since the rest of the citizens who live in other regions of the nation cannot participate in said decision.
It is important to understand the difference between the demographic volume or territorial extension of an electoral district with its size. This concept, which is also known as magnitude , refers to the number of seats that have been assigned (in the chambers of representation, the seats are the positions for parliamentarians). According to their magnitude, it is possible to establish a classification that gives rise to two types of electoral constituencies: single-member and multi-member .
Uninominal
This type of electoral constituency is one from which a single member is elected to a parliament or other body consisting of several members. Certain electoral systems that use it are the following: the Condorcet method; the preferential vote; Count Borda; the approval vote; the runoff (also known as the second round of elections ); single-member majority scrutiny. These last two are the most frequent.
In India and Australia, among other countries, the election of members of the lower house of parliament takes place through single-member constituencies. Those in the upper house, on the other hand, are elected through multi-member elections.
Plurinominal
It is the alternative to the previous one. From it, a minimum of two people are elected to form part of a body made up of several members, such as a parliament. Two of the electoral systems that use it most frequently are multi-member proportional scrutiny (also called proportional representation system ) and block voting (or multi-member majority vote ).
This type of constituency has a variant, the so-called single constituency , in which all the voters in the territory of a country are considered a unit .
In Paraguay there are eighteen judicial districts
judicial district
A judicial district , on the other hand, is the result of the decentralization of the Judicial Branch . In each one there are bodies that can administer justice, such as courts, tribunals and chambers, with jurisdictional independence. In Paraguay , to mention one case, there are eighteen judicial districts: Capital , Itapúa , Concepción , Alto Paraná , San Pedro , Presidente Hayes and Boquerón , among others.
This decentralization also means that each jurisdiction enjoys independence , which is granted by the National Constitution. Continuing with Paraguay, in each of its judicial constituencies we find a Court of Appeals; Almost all of them have two chambers, whose members must attend to the trials of all the jurisdictions. They also have various courts to deal with issues such as labor reality, commerce and juvenile delinquency .