The regulation establishes that the quorum for the plenary sessions of the Senate is half plus one of the number of eligible senators. This means 31 congressmen. With that minimum quorum, a law from the Chamber of Deputies could be ratified with 16 votes.
The problem arises if we consider scenarios of fragmented voting. For example, a law could be ratified with a simple majority of 11 votes in favor, 10 against, and 10 abstentions.
The number of eligible congressmen is defined when those on leave, those suspended, and those not incorporated are subtracted from the 60 senators. An additional point to consider is that the regulation itself allows for 20% of leaves, so, in an extreme case, the number of eligible senators could be reduced to 48 and the quorum could drop to 25 senators for the plenary session.
This Newspaper reviewed all attendance records in the current unicameral period 2021-2026, which had 130 congressmen. The analysis shows a clear low reduction in the presence of congressmen in the chamber as their term progresses, going from an average of 87.4% in the 2021-2022 period to 72.1% present in 2024-2025.
Unjustified absences doubled: from 8% in 2021-2022 to 16.6% in the 2024-2025 period. Meanwhile, leaves are the ones that show the highest alert indicator: they went from 4.6% in 2021-2022 to 10.9% in 2024-2025. For this comparative analysis, the 2024-2025 period was taken into account, because from the second half of 2025, leaves and absences show a greater increase, but due to the start of the electoral campaign.
—Some safeguards—
Despite the possibility of a scenario where laws are ratified with a low number of votes, PUCP professor Milagros Campos explained that the regulation includes exceptions for when the Senate wants to introduce modifications to laws sent by the Chamber of Deputies.
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“This manages to avoid fast-track legislation or surprise norms. If they want to modify or shelve the texts sent by the deputies, they must have 31 votes. It doesn’t matter if all 60 senators attend the plenary session or not,” detailed one of the academics who best masters parliamentary issues in Peru.
As an example, Campos indicated that if the Chamber of Deputies sends a norm to declare a gas emergency, and the Senate decides to modify the text to create a national company, it could only be achieved with 31 votes. “If you don’t have that majority, you won’t achieve it,” she noted.
—Necessary modifications—
For his part, parliamentary affairs expert Martín Cabrera warned of another type of regulatory contradiction. “There are asymmetries that are very striking: to approve a law, 11 votes may be enough, but to reopen that same vote, through reconsideration, 31 are needed,” he calculated.
According to him, there are diverse cases in the region, such as in Chile, which has the lowest session quorum in the region: the Senate can meet with only 17 of its 50 members. Argentina, at the other extreme, requires an absolute majority of its total members to meet: 37 out of 72. “The solution is a regulatory adjustment, not a constitutional reform. This means that the new senators could do it from the first day of the first legislature,” said the director of IPOC Consultores.
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