Constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization, or other entity. It commonly determines how that entity is to be governed. The Constitution of India runs to 146,385 words in its English-language version, making it the longest written constitution of any country in the world. The Constitution of Monaco runs to just 3,814 words, the shortest. Between those two extremes lies a strange truth about these documents. Since 1789, close to 800 constitutions have been adopted and amended by independent states, yet the historical life expectancy of a written constitution is approximately 19 years. Why do some collapse within a single year while others endure for centuries? What did a Sumerian king, an English baron, and an exiled Cossack hetman each understand about binding power to rules? And when does a written promise of rights mean nothing at all?
Scott Gordon argued that a political organization is constitutional to the extent that it contains institutionalized mechanisms of power control for the protection of the interests and liberties of the citizenry, including those who may be in the minority. That idea of limits runs through the vocabulary of constitutional law. Actions by officials that fall within their constitutional or statutory authority are termed within power, or in Latin intra vires. Actions that exceed that authority are beyond power, or ultra vires. A students' union barred from non-student activities offers a small example. If it meddles in non-student affairs, those acts are ultra vires of its charter, and nobody is compelled to follow them. In most but not all modern states, the constitution holds supremacy over ordinary statutory law. When an official act is unconstitutional, that act is null and void, and the nullification is ab initio, meaning from inception rather than from the date of the finding. It was never law at all. Hegel offered a loftier view, writing that a constitution is the work of centuries, the idea, the consciousness of rationality so far as that consciousness is developed in a particular nation.
Excavations in modern-day Iraq by Ernest de Sarzec in 1877 found evidence of the earliest known code of justice, issued by the Sumerian king Urukagina of Lagash around 2300 BC. The document itself has not been discovered, yet it is known to have relieved tax for widows and orphans and protected the poor from the usury of the rich. The oldest such document still known to exist appears to be the Code of Ur-Nammu of Ur, from around 2050 BC. In 621 BC, a scribe named Draco codified the oral laws of Athens, prescribing the death penalty for many offenses and giving us the word draconian. Solon followed in 594 BC, basing membership of the ruling class on wealth rather than birth, and Cleisthenes set the Athenian constitution on a democratic footing in 508 BC. Aristotle, writing around 350 BC, was the first to draw a formal distinction between ordinary law and constitutional law. He defined a constitution as the arrangement of the offices in a state, and concluded that the best constitution was a mixed system blending monarchic, aristocratic, and democratic elements. The Romans codified their constitution as the Twelve Tables in 450 BC, a starting point for a legal tradition that would later shape much of Europe.
The Constitution of Medina was drafted by the Islamic prophet Muhammad after his flight, the hijra, to Yathrib, the city later known as Medina. It bound Muslims, Jews, and pagans into a single community, the Ummah, and aimed to end the bitter fighting between the clans of the Aws and Khazraj. Scholars generally place it shortly after the Hijra of 622. Japan offers an earlier Asian example. The Seventeen-article constitution, written in 604 and reportedly by Prince Shotoku, drew on Buddhist teachings and dwelt more on social morality than on institutions of government. In West Africa, the Kouroukan Founga was a 13th-century charter of the Mali Empire, reconstructed from oral tradition in 1988 by Siriman Kouyate. It included the right to life and to the preservation of physical integrity, along with significant protections for women. The Gayanashagowa, the oral constitution of the Haudenosaunee nation, also called the Great Law of Peace, established a system of governance dated as far back as 1190 AD. Under it, the Sachems of the Iroquois League made decisions by universal consensus, with senior female clan heads allocating each hereditary position.
In 1100, Henry I's proclamation of the Charter of Liberties bound an English king for the first time in his treatment of the clergy and the nobility. The barony pushed that idea further in 1215, forcing King John to sign Magna Carta. Article 39 declared that no free man shall be arrested, imprisoned, deprived of his property, outlawed, or exiled unless by the legal judgement of his peers or by the law of the land. That single provision became the cornerstone of English liberty. Centuries later, on the 4th of January 1649, the Rump Parliament declared that the people are, under God, the original of all just power. The English Protectorate then produced the first detailed written constitution adopted by a modern state, the Instrument of Government. Major-General John Lambert drafted it in 1653, drawing on the earlier Heads of Proposals agreed by the Army Council in 1647. Parliament adopted it on the 15th of December 1653, and Oliver Cromwell was installed as Lord Protector the following day. It vested executive authority in a non-hereditary life appointment and required triennial Parliaments. In May 1657 it gave way to the Humble Petition and Advice, England's second and last codified constitution, which finally died alongside Cromwell and the Restoration of the monarchy.
In 1710, Pylyp Orlyk, hetman of the Zaporozhian Host, wrote the Agreements and Constitutions of Laws and Freedoms of the Zaporizian Host. It established a separation of powers between legislative, executive, and judiciary branches well before Montesquieu published his Spirit of the Laws, and it created a democratically elected Cossack parliament called the General Council. Written in exile, Orlyk's project for an independent Ukrainian State never went into effect. The United States Constitution, ratified on the 21st of June 1788, drew on the writings of Polybius, Locke, and Montesquieu, and became a benchmark for republicanism. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Constitution followed on the 3rd of May 1791, developed by minds such as King Stanislaw August Poniatowski and Hugo Kollataj. It is considered the first constitution of its kind in Europe and the world's second oldest after the American one. The Spanish Constitution of 1812, ratified at Cadiz, the only Spanish continental city safe from French occupation, became a model for liberal constitutions across South Europe and Latin America. The Norwegians infused a radically democratic and liberal constitution in 1814 while keeping a hereditary monarch limited by that document.
A codified constitution is contained in a single document that serves as the single source of constitutional law in a state. Such documents often emerge from dramatic political change, such as a revolution, and their legitimacy is frequently tied to how they were first adopted. They normally consist of a ceremonial preamble setting out the goals of the state, followed by articles containing the substantive provisions. The preamble may reference God or fundamental values such as liberty, democracy, or human rights. Only two sovereign states, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, have wholly uncodified constitutions. The British version evolved over centuries and includes written sources like statutes alongside unwritten ones, among them the custom of holding general elections on Thursdays. Some constitutions sit between the two. The Constitution of Australia is supplemented by the Statute of Westminster and the Australia Act 1986, plus unwritten conventions and the common law. Constitutions also locate sovereignty, distributing it across three basic types: unitary, federal, and confederal. In a unitary state, sovereignty resides in the state itself. In a federal state, such as Canada or the United States, sovereignty is divided between the centre and the constituent regions. Confederal constitutions, where sovereignty stays in the regions, are rare.
Constitutional rights are not a specific characteristic of democratic countries. North Korea's constitution officially grants every citizen the freedom of expression, among other things. Yet the extent to which governments abide by their own provisions varies sharply. In North Korea, the Ten Principles for the Establishment of a Monolithic Ideological System are said to have eclipsed the constitution in practice as a frame of government. Developing a tradition of strict adherence to constitutional provisions is considered foundational to the rule of law. An entrenched clause sets that adherence in stone, making certain amendments more difficult or impossible. The U.S. Constitution prohibits abolishing the equal suffrage of the States within the Senate without their consent. The term eternity clause is used for similar provisions in the constitutions of Germany, Turkey, Brazil, Norway, and others. India's constitution lacks explicit entrenched clauses, but its basic structure doctrine makes it impossible for certain basic features to be altered or destroyed by the Parliament of India. The oldest written document still governing a sovereign nation today belongs to San Marino. The Leges Statutae Republicae Sancti Marini, written in Latin in 1600 across six books, was based on a town statute of 1300, and it remains in force today.
Common questions
What is a constitution and what does it do?
A constitution, or supreme law, is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization, or other entity. It commonly determines how that entity is to be governed, defining the principles on which a state is based and the procedure by which laws are made and by whom. Some constitutions also act as limiters of state power by establishing lines a state's rulers cannot cross, such as fundamental rights.
What is the longest and shortest written constitution in the world?
The Constitution of India is the longest written constitution of any country in the world, with 146,385 words in its English-language version. The Constitution of Monaco is the shortest written constitution, with 3,814 words.
How long does a written constitution typically last?
The historical life expectancy of a written constitution since 1789 is approximately 19 years. A great number of constitutions do not last more than 10 years, and around 10 percent do not last more than one year, as was the case of the French Constitution of 1791.
What is the difference between a codified and an uncodified constitution?
A codified constitution is contained in a single document, which is the single source of constitutional law in a state. An uncodified constitution is not contained in a single document and consists of several different sources that may be written or unwritten. Only two sovereign states, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, have wholly uncodified constitutions.
What is the oldest active written constitution?
The Constitution of San Marino might be the world's oldest active written constitution, since some of its core documents have been in operation since 1600. The Leges Statutae Republicae Sancti Marini was written in Latin across six books and remains in force today. The Constitution of the United States is the oldest active codified constitution.
What does it mean for a constitution to have supremacy over ordinary law?
In most but not all modern states, the constitution has supremacy over ordinary statutory law, so an act that is not a power granted by the constitution is null and void. The nullification is ab initio, meaning from inception rather than from the date of the finding, so the act was never law. If a legal statute conflicts with a codified constitution, all or part of it can be declared ultra vires by a court and struck down as unconstitutional.
All sources
99 references cited across the entry
- 3BookIndia's ConstitutionM.V. Pylee — S. Chand & Co. — 1997
- 4Constitution of IndiaMinistry of Law and Justice of India — July 2008
- 7The Endurance of National ConstitutionsZachary Elkins et al. — Cambridge University Press — 2009
- 8BookThe Historical and Institutional Context of Roman LawGeorge Mousourakis — Ashgate — 12 December 2003
- 9BookOxford Handbook of Comparative Constitutional LawOxford University Press — 17 May 2012
- 10BookControlling the State: Constitutionalism from Ancient Athens to TodayScott Gordon — Harvard University Press — 1999
- 12BookThe U.S. Constitution and Fascinating Facts About ItTerry L. Jordan — Oak Hill Publishing Company — 2013
- 13Thomas Jefferson to James Madison6 September 1789
- 14BookThe Endurance of National ConstitutionsElkins Zachary et al. — Cambridge University Press — 2009
- 15Innovation in Constitutional RightsTom Ginsburg et al. — Draft for presentation at NYU Workshop on Law, Economics and Politics
- 16Does the Process of Constitution-Making Matter?Tom Ginsburg et al. — Annu. Rev. Law Soc. Sci.5 — 2009
- 17NewsThe Anomalous Life of the Japanese Constitution15 August 2017
- 19JournalDo Constitutional Rights Make a Difference?Adam S. Chilton et al. — Coase-Sandor Institute for Law & Economics Working Paper No. 694 — 2014
- 25Pre-colonial Political Order in AfricaAdeyinka Adewale et al. — Springer Nature Switzerland — 2023
- 27The United States has "the longest surviving constitution".PolitiFact.com
- 28BookThe Invented Indian: cultural fictions and government policiesTooker E — Transaction Publishers — 1990
- 29Lex Regia/KongelovenOxford University Press — 2010-01-01
- 30JournalAbsolute monarchy in Denmark: Change and continuityKnud J. V. Jespersen — 1987-01-01
- 31JournalThe Danish Royal Law of 1665Ernst Ekman — 1957
- 34BookThe Origins of Modern ConstitutionalismFrancis D. Wormuth — Harper & Brothers — 1949
- 39BookHistoria för gymnasiet. Årskurs 1Ivan Borg et al. — AV Carlsons — 1967
- 40BookHistoria för gymnasiet: allmän och nordisk historia efter år 1000Almqvist & Wiksell — 1965
- 42BookConstitutions of the WorldAlbert Blaustein — Fred B. Rothman & Company — January 1993
- 43BookThe Federalist PapersJames Madison — Penguin Classics — 1987
- 47BookA History of Spain and Portugal: Eighteenth Century to FrancoStanley G. Payne — University of Wisconsin Press — 1973
- 48JournalMajoritarian and Consensus Democracy: the Swedish ExperienceLeif Lewin — 1 May 2007
- 54JournalThe Constitutional Dilemma of Economic LibertyBarry R. Weingast — Summer 2005
- 55JournalThe Administrative Foundations of Self-Enforcing ConstitutionsYadira González de Lara et al. — May 2008
- 57BookBlackshield and Williams Australian Constitutional Law and Theory: Commentary and MaterialsGeorge Williams et al. — Federation Press — 2018
- 62BookConstitutional Evolution in Central and Eastern Europe (Studies in Modern Law and Policy)Kyriaki Topidi and Alexander H.E. Morawa — Ashgate Publishing — 2010
- 64BookWeak Constitutionalism: Democratic Legitimacy and the Question of Constituent Power (Routledge Research in Constitutional LawJoel Colón-Ríos — Routledge — 2012
- 65BookEncyclopedia of World ConstitutionsGerhard Robbers — Facts On File, Incorporated — 2006
- 66NewsThe basic features2004-09-26
- 93JournalIl bicameralismo tra due modelli mancatiGiampiero Buonomo — 2013