Page 71 - DPOL202_COMPARATIVE_POLITICS_AND_GOVERNMENT_ENGLISH

Comparative Politics and Government

Notes • The American constitution is notoriously rigid and yet it has been changed not only by the
process of formal amendment (that is so cumbersome) but also by other sources like executive
decrees, legislative measures, judicial decisions, and usages and customs. The American
people proudly say that though they still have the constitution made by the Philadelphia
Convention of 1787, it is not the same thing what was produced by their founding fathers.
• If the constitution of a state fails to be in consonance with the national temperament, it is
bound to collapse the examples of which may be seen in the political developments of many
countries of the Afro-Asian world. It means that an element of flexibility must invariably be
accommodated into the fundamental law of the land.
• The units of local government do not enjoy autonomy under a unitary constitution as they
live and work under the control of the central government, but the units or regional
governments enjoy autonomy under a federal constitution in the sphere allotted to them by
the constitution.
• The bill of constitutional amendments passed by 2/3 majority in the chambers of national
legislature and it is subject to ratification by the majority of the legislatures of the units by
similar majority as in the United States, or by the final verdict of the people given in a
referendum as in France, or by both as in Switzerland.
• A unitary constitution makes the central government strong so that it may meet any critical
situation, but it does not work well in a big country or where there is marked diversity in
respect of religions, cultures, languages and ways of life of the people.
• The element of centralism has made its place in every federal system of the world as a result
of which the inherent weakness of a federal constitution has been done away with.
• It is indispensable even for the states in which a regime of the most primitive type or a
despotism of the worst sort prevails. Jellinek is right in holding that a state without a
constitution would not be a state but a regime of anarchy.
• It is lauded as the ‘cornerstone’ of a democratic nation-state; even the non-democratic states
have their own set of rules which they call ‘a charter’ or ‘a manifesto’ of the ideology of their
state apparatus.
• It is also essential that the constitution of a state should neither be a strong defence of the
status quo permitting hardly any change in response to the changing conditions of the people,
nor should it be so flexible or dynamic that it may be a plaything in the hands of the
legislators, or administrators, or adjudicators of the country.
• Constitutionalism is a modern concept that desires a political order governed by laws and
regulations. It stands for the supremacy of law and not of the individuals; it imbibes the
principles of nationalism, democracy and limited government. It may be identified with the
system of ‘divided power.’
• A constitution “may be said to be a collection of principles according to which the powers of
the government, the rights of the governed, and the relations between the two are adjusted.”
• “The word ‘constitution’ is commonly used in at least two senses in an ordinary discussion
of political affairs. First of all, it is used to describe the whole system of a government of a
country, the collection of rules which establish and regulate or govern the government.
• The constitution of a state may be a deliberate creation on paper effected by some assembly
or convention at a particular time; it may be found in the shape of a document that has
altered in response to the requirements of the time and age; it may also be a bundle of
separate laws assuming special sanctity of being the fundamental law of the land; or again.
• Whereas the constitution refers to a frame of political society organised through and by
means of law and in which law has established permanent institutions with recognised
functions and definite rights, a constitutional state “is one in which of the powers of the
government, the rights of the governed and the relations between the two are, adjusted.”

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