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Unit 3: Constitutions and Constitutionalism

• A constitution may incorporate a particular clause saying that the powers of the government Notes
shall be unlimited during the days of war or armed rebellion as we may see in the case of the
Irish constitution.
• “The extent to which constitutional government has been suspended in time of war varies a
great deal. It need not be assumed that war means the destruction of constitutional government
in every case. Yet it is certain to put a strain upon it and it usually suspends it in some degree.”
• The Government of India had made several important arrangements after the proclamation
of national emergency in 1975 that were dubbed by its critics as the ‘murder of democracy’.
• There is the factor of the social and economic distress. Eradication of the conditions of
starvation, famine, illiteracy, disease, poverty, squalor, prestilence, etc. requires discretionary
action of the state. The government is called for to take immediate and drastic action to
alleviate the sufferings of the people.
• Crisis or emergency government can seldom be constitutional government: peace and
prosperity are in truth strong allies of constitutional government. Their prospects are its
prospects.”
• The attribute of nationalism occupies the first place in view of the fact that the modern
constitutional state is necessarily a nationalist organisation. The constitutionalism should
recognise the principle of national self determination.
• The Soviet constitution had given the right to every nationality to secede from the Union that
had made the federation analogous to a confederation.
• Nationalism is being imperceptibly supreseded by trans-nationalism the example of which
may be seen in the successful working of the European Union. The member-states of this
trans-national organisation have made necessary adjustments so as to harmonise their political
institutions with the constitutional set up of the European Union.
• “If constitutional government is limited government, it follows that one of its enemies is
absolutism of any kind. Any body of opinion and any organised movement which aims at
establishing omnipotent government is clearly a force opposed to constitutional government.”
• A new definition of the term constitutionalism should be thus furnished that it “embodies
the simple proposition that the government is a set of activities organised by and operated
on behalf of the people, but subject to a series of restraints which attempt to ensure that the
power which is needed for such governance is not abused by those who are called upon to
do the governing.
• A federal plan should be devised so that the society, apart from being a federation of territorial
units is also a federation of all kinds of associations in which all people “do in practice
express themselves far more freely than they do through the normal political organisation. It
implies the establishment of semi-sovereign bodies with definite rights within the sphere of
their action corresponding to such rights at present enjoyed by the federating units in such
federations as the United States and the Commonwealth of Australia, the difference being
that they would have no political but economic, religious or social functions.
The constitution of the Russian Federation of 1993 has provisions for the protection of a
healthy environment. It recognises the norms of sustainable development. The constitution
of South Africa of 1996 honours the principles of international law. Hence, the state is enjoined
to observe its international treaties and commitments.
3.7 Key-Words

1. Constitutional government : A constitutional government is any government whose
authority and constructions are defined by a constitution. The
government need not be of specific type, such as democratic,
socialist, etc., but it does need to have parameters that are
defined and relatively unchangeable.

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