section_path: Electoral term and principle of discontinuation
section_name: Electoral term and principle of discontinuation
paragraph_text: Electoral term and principle of discontinuation
  
  The Bundestag is elected for four years, and new elections must be held no earlier than 46 and no later than 48 months after the beginning of a given legislative session.
  
  By way of exception, there may be an early election if the President of Germany dissolves the Bundestag. However, the President only has the right to do so in the event of a failed chancellor election or if an incumbent chancellor requests dissolution after losing a vote of confidence. The possibility of an early election is therefore much more limited than is the case in other parliamentary democracies. This restriction is intended to encourage the parliamentary groups to cooperate in difficult situations and is a lesson learned from the experience of the Weimar Republic, in which snap elections were very frequent because the parties were unable to compromise and form stable governments. In constitutional reality however, the deliberately lost vote of confidence (also known as a false vote of confidence) has established itself as a way for the chancellor to bring about new elections, de facto at his or her discretion (this has happened four times so far: 1972, 1982/83, 2005 and 2024/25).
  
  A legislative session ends in the moment, a newly elected Bundestag convenes for the first time, which must occur within 30 days after an election. The principle applies that there can be no 'period without parliament'. An elected Bundestag is fully competent to act until a newly elected Bundestag convenes for its first session. Prorogations and dissolutions (in the strict sense), as known in the Westminster system, do not exist in Germany. Even an early dissolution of the Bundestag, as described above, in practice only leads to an early election, but does not end the legislative period itself. Before a constitutional amendment in 1976, the "Standing Committee" took the place of the Bundestag with all its rights after dissolution by the President or 48 months after its constitution until a new Bundestag was constituted. Since then, a legislative session generally only ends when the new Bundestag convenes, meaning that lame duck sessions can occur in the four weeks following an election. This has happened four times so far:
  
  Following the tradition of German parliamentarism, the Bundestag is subject to the principle of discontinuation, meaning that a newly elected Bundestag is legally regarded to be a body and entity completely different from the previous Bundestag. This leads to the result that any motion, application or action submitted to the previous Bundestag, e.g. a bill referred to the Bundestag by the Federal Government, is regarded as void by non-decision (German terminology: " Die Sache fällt der Diskontinuität anheim "). Thus any bill that has not been decided upon by the beginning of the new electoral period must be brought up by the government again if it aims to uphold the motion, this procedure in effect delaying the passage of the bill. Furthermore, any newly elected Bundestag will have to freshly decide on the rules of procedure (Geschäftsordnung), which is done by a formal decision of taking over such rules from the preceding Bundestag by reference. If the succeeding Bundestag convents with same or similar majorities like its predecessor, the parliament can decide to take over earlier initiatives of legislation in the same fashion to abbreviate the process, thus effectively breaking the principle of discontinuation by a pull.