Most countries impose some restrictions regarding outside occupations of the members of parliament (in 1976, the exceptions included many countries of the
Soviet bloc,
Liechtenstein, and
Sweden). Some restrictions come in the form of
ineligibility, disqualifying a candidate (for example, as defined by the
Incompatibility Clause of the
US Constitution or
House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 in the
UK). In other cases, the candidate with a potential incompatibility is allowed to run in the election, yet in case of an electoral success has to make a choice between their occupation and membership. The lists of occupations prohibited to parliamentarians vary by country, but frequently include: •
civil servants, usually defined as people appointed by the government or receiving public money (some states explicitly define the incompatible government jobs). Few countries, like
Austria,
Germany,
France suspend the duties and benefits of public servants, so they are able to resume their original work after ending their parliament career; • members of the
Judiciary defined as either all persons in these occupations (France,
Spain), or just the judges of
high courts; •
executives of
public corporations; • members of the armed forces and police; •
public contractors; • members of other
deliberative assemblies. Most countries allow an exception for
local governments, but some prohibit simultaneous membership in a State or provincial legislature (
Australia,
Brazil,
Canada,
India) or any local assembly (
Belgium,
Italy,
Republic of Korea); • holders of the
ministerial office usually cannot combine these jobs with membership in parliament in the states with formal
separation of powers and
presidential systems, while
parliamentary systems (except for France,
Netherlands, and
Sweden) generally do not consider this an incompatibility and even encourage the practice. == Party membership ==