The key word here is “federal”. By confining the comparison to federal constitutions, we can omit Sweden, the UK and a great many other countries whose core constitutional arrangements long predate 1789, but which are unitary states, not federations.
I think the statement is probably correct. Offhand, I cannot think of a current constitional federation which goes back to before 1789.
The question reads “longest standing” – perhaps they mean that it was not been interrupted. The US government has been trucking through both World Wars and the Civil War. I believe that if you phrase it like that, the US government has been “standing” in Washington at the Capitol Building and the White House since 1812, if my reckoning is correct. The British government, however, met in underground war rooms starting in 1939 and throughout the rest of the war. It is a dumb way of interpreting the question, but there ya go.
According to the CIA Factbook, Iceland has had the oldest established legislative assembly (since 930 CE). Apparently it hasn’t been sovereign the entire time (periods of control by Norway and Denmark), but one could argue it was still a government.
Nope- you forget the Anti-Popes, when the Papacy was (according to some) hijacked into france, and kept there under armed force. Much more than “a few years”.
And the Catholic Enclycopedia itself only considered the "Papal States’ as land under the temporal authority. “Consists of the civil territory which for over 1000 years (754-1870) acknowledged the pope as temporal ruler. The expression “Patrimonium Sancti Petri” originally designated the landed possessions and revenues of various kinds that belonged to the Church of St. Peter at Rome. Until the middle of the eighth century this consisted wholly of private property, but the term was later applied to the States of the Church, and more particularly to the Duchy of Rome”
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14257a.htm
The Pope is Soveriegn, yes, but the Vatican City isn’t really. You need to read the long article to understand. The land also went back & forth under various conquests, etc.
The Online Catholic Encyclopedia isn’t much help here, since it dates from 1908-1913, whereas the Vatican City State wasn’t created until 1929.
The Holy See as a sovereign entity is pretty old; certainly much, much older than the United States. but it’s better thought of as an internationally-recognised sovereign organisation rather than a country.
At times it has had varying amounts of territory attached to it. From 1870 to 1929, while the Holy See existed and was internationally active and recognised, it had no territory at all. So, viewed as the government of a country, it doesn’t have a continuous record stretching back before 1929.
(For the record, although the popes resided at Avignon during the Great Western Schism, they still governed papal territories in Italy as well as in France. There were of course times when there were rival claimants to the papal throne, and at these times control of church lands might have been disputed, and practical control might have passed from one claimant to another. I don’t think that would mean that church government wasn’t continuous, however. If one ruler challenges or replaces another but doesn’t challenge the overall constitutional arrangements, we don’t generally regard that as a continuation of the constitutional arrangement, whether the challenge/replacement arose because of election, death and inheritance, impeachment or the outcome of an armed struggle. To take this to its extreme, there are several historical examples of rulers who came to office by assassinating their predecessors in office; nobody argues that this necessarily amounts to a new consitutional or government dispensation.)
Althingi is the Icelandic parliment, founded in 930 AD. It continued to meet until 1799 when it was discontinued for about 50 years. It then reconvened and has been meeting since.
So Iceland’s parliment could be counted from 930 or from 1844.
Of course, Australia has the oldest federal written constitution with full adult suffrage, as from 1901. (The US gave women the vote about 20 years later).
I don’t think we can count Britain. Although their has been a continuous government, the accession of Victoria to the throne completely changed the nature of government.
Given that Lord Melbourne was Prime Minister from 1835 to 1841, i.e. for 2 years before her accession and 4 years after her accession, how does Queen Victoria completely change things? It’s not as if Victoria was the first Queen regnant.
And of course, the U.S. having a continuous government since 1789 (when it the U.S. Constitution went into effect) only applies to a part of the current U.S. – territory owned by the U.S. in 1789 that did not then become for a time part of the Confederate States of America. So Kentucky to Maine, more or less.
While you could probably date it a few years before her coronation, until that time British monarchs ruled in fact (not with absolute power, but they did rule). Victoria did not, and after her reign no monarch seriously could entertain the idea except in the most outlandish political what-if scenarios.
Or you could date the significant limitation on the power of the crown to the Glorious Revolution of 1688. That would certainly be a much more signficant event than the accession of Victoria.
That the USA constitution is the oldest USA constitution.
Regarding another post:
Also, I believe the case could be made that since the USA didn’t recognize the CSA as leaving, that the CSA was generally not recognized as a country by others, that they actually did lose the war, that southerners never reapplied for citizenship (although certain political and military leaders of the rebellion were temporarily stripped of full citizenship perks, for the most part the running assumption was that people were natural citizens all along), that portions of it were held by Union troops virtually all 4 years of war, etc, that the CSA was never a seperate country, but an area of a larger country in insurrection. (No one ever suggested, for example, that areas held by UNITA weren’t actually part of Angola.)
In any event, if we want to nitpick about the ‘federal constitution’ portion of the question, then we can trace it to the exact day in 1787 when Pennsylvania ratified, joining with Delaware, as Delaware itself did not a federation make. That pushes us back 5 days, Dec 12 instead of Dec 7.
Canada is a constitutional monarchy which has a federal constitution that includes a great many constitution conventions inherited from England (such as the office of prime minister), and quite a few constitutional documents (such as the Royal Proclamation (Proc., Charles II, Eng., 1670, which no longer has the force of law). The oldest part of our formal constitution that holds the force of law dates from the Royal Proclamation of October 7, 1763, and was incorporated by reference.
True, but Canada as a federated political entity has only existed since the British North America Act 1867, so you can’t really argue that there is a federal Canadian constitution which has continued from before that date.
When I listen to the BBC or some other non-American news organization about a foreign election in a Parliament , they often say that “Prime Minister so-and-so will now create a new government…”
So, parliamentary elections basically hit the reset button every election period, as apposed to how us yanks do it?
Just think of “new Government” in the same sense that you use “new Administration”. (The technical difference is that a “new Government” constitutes a change to the legislature, and (unofficially) a change to the executive as well, whereas a “new Administration” constitutes a formal change to the executive only).
Right off the top of my head, I can say with confidence that two of those are wrong. Italy has changed governments often, but just think of Mussolini to prove my point. In the case of Spain, just think of Franco for the second one. As to the rest of Europe, France has changed governments more than Imelda changed shoes and Germany is under somewhat of a differnent government than they had under Hitler.
However, I think the OP is incorrect. 
You are correct. What we have is a constitution that began well before the country. The 1763 constitutional document covered four separate colonies, rather than one federation of four colonies. The first nations elements of it remain as part of our constitution now that we are a federation.