What a bicameral parliament is
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A bicameral parliament splits its legislative work between two chambers, usually described as an upper and a lower house. The arrangement is meant to build a second layer of review into lawmaking, so that a bill cannot pass on the strength of one chamber's mood alone, no matter how strongly that mood happens to be felt at any given time.
The two houses are often composed differently: one might be elected from local districts and the other from a wider or proportional base, or appointed on different terms altogether. That structural difference is deliberate, since it means the same political wave rarely sweeps both chambers in exactly the same way, which tends to slow sudden shifts in overall policy direction considerably.
Supporters argue bicameralism slows down rash legislation and forces compromise, while critics say it can create gridlock or duplicate effort unnecessarily. Either way, understanding which chamber does what is a useful first step to following how a law actually comes into being, and why some bills take far longer than others to finally pass through both chambers.