Concept
Constitutional law
Overview
Constitutional law is a body of law which defines the role, powers, and structure of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the parliament or legislature, and the judiciary; as well as the basic rights of citizens and their relationship with their governments, and in federal countries such as the United States and Canada, the relationship between the central government and state, provincial, or territorial governments.
Not all nation states have codified constitutions, though all such states have a jus commune, or law of the land, that may consist of a variety of imperative and consensual rules. These may include customary law, conventions, statutory law, judge-made law, or international law. Constitutional law deals with the fundamental principles by which the government exercises its authority. In some instances, these principles grant specific powers to the government, such as the power to tax and spend for the welfare of the population. Other times, constitutional principles act to place limits on what the government can do, such as prohibiting the arrest of an individual without sufficient cause.
In most nations, such as the United States, India, and Singapore, constitutional law is based on the text of a document ratified at the time the nation came into being. Other constitutions, notably that of the United Kingdom, rely heavily on uncodified rules, as several legislative statutes and constitutional conventions, their status within constitutional law varies, and the terms of conventions are in some cases strongly contested.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
Sometimes what is called the constitution of the state, that is, the interest of the government; sometimes the interest of particular orders of men who tyrannize the government, warp the positive laws of the country from what natural justice would prescribe. In some countries, the rudeness and barbarism of the people hinder the natural sentiments of justice from arriving at that accuracy and precision which, in more…
Adam Smith, The Essays of Adam Smith
States what Constitutional law is.
Now, if no other determining principle can serve as a law for the will except that universal legislative form, such a will must be conceived as quite independent of the natural law of phenomena in their mutual relation, namely, the law of causality; such independence is called freedom in the strictest, that is, in the transcendental, sense; consequently, a will which can have its law in nothing but the mere…
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Practical Reason
States what Constitutional law is.
These unwritten rules, which limit the use of lawful powers, are, however, only effectual, and maintain themselves in existence on condition of harmonising with the actual distribution of real political strength. There is in every constitution a strongest power--one which would gain the victory if the compromises by which the Constitution habitually works were suspended, and there came a trial of strength…
John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government
Opens on Constitutional law; names Constitutional law.
Philosophers who discussed Constitutional law
Related ideas
- Executive (government)
- Federation
- Case law
- Nation state
- Unitary state
- Precedent
- Rule of law
- Statute
- State (polity)
- United Kingdom
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- United States
- Civil liberties
- Oxford University Press
- Canada
- Constitution
- Common law
- France
- Convention (norm)
- Democracy
- International law
- Election
- A. V. Dicey
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Jurisprudence.