We Americans talk about our Constitution a lot. We’ve even made our 2nd Amendment world famous. To hear people talk sometimes you would think they worship it. I was wondering if other countries revere their own constitution, or whatever rules the country, as much as Americans do. How familiar are you with yours?
No. I mean, we’re aware ours is way, way better than yours, but we don’t worship it the way some of you do. We just enforce it.
Intimately.
I’m a Canadian lawyer, and the Canadian constitution is one of my practice areas. So I guess I’m a Canadian constitutional lawyer.
Most Canadians don’t give it a second thought. It establishes a House of Commons, a Senate, a Head of State; and it codifies a bunch of rights that Canadians have enjoyed since before Canada became a country. But it is not revered in the way Americans revere theirs.
Ask me to kneel/bow before our Canadian Constitution, and I’ll ask, “Are you fu*king kidding me? It’s a piece of paper!” And I’ve never seen the original (though I do have a copy of it, published by the Queen’s Printer, bound, on the shelf of my office), though I know and respect it.
How many Americans regard their Constitution as “just a piece of paper”? And how many would bow/kneel before it? I’d suggest plenty. I’ll stop here.
How many countries even have an official written constitution?
It is, I think, common knowledge that the UK does not, for example.
Australians don’t. It’s a dull document that merely sets out the mechanisms of government. It doesn’t have anything about individual rights.
As a Zimbabwean… no. Our national occupation is to piss on the constitution.
As a South African, fuck yes. It is not treated as religiously as the USA but it forms the basis for “The New South Africa” (not so new now) and everything we stand for. It’s a big deal, frequently getting legal attention both in interpretation and legal review.
Also a point of natiomal pride, across all groups amongst which I have interaction.
We (well, not me, I was not a citizen at the time) fucking nailed it.
This really depends on how you define constitution. A definition I found gives
A body of fundamental principles or established according to which a state or other organization is acknowledged to be governed.
Some people say the UK doesn’t have a constitution, but it really has an uncodified constitution.
The supreme court and its predecessors have established constitutional principles such as the sovereignty of parliament, the rule of law, and democracy. While there is no single document giving the UK constitution, King Charles (or anyone else) would not be able to overrule parliament not could parliament agree to end elections and the PM selects MPs and their successor as they see fit.
True enough.
But Aussies are pretty happy with that lack of intrusion. Of 45 Federal referendums held to change the Constitution just 8 have succeeded, and almost all of them would be considered as administrative rather than progressive.
Constitutional referendums require a double majority i.e. a majority of votes and a majority of states. There have been 5 that carried the popular vote but failed the state counts.
Americans, mostly, because if it doesn’t match their constitutional model, it’s not a constitution.
I’ve also seen American academics take a similar view of Canada’s Constituion, with patronizing comments like « the closest thing Canadians have to a constitution » followed by uninformed nonsense.
I agree with @Spoons ´s comments for Canada.
I’m very familiar with our Constitution.
Our Constitution is a complicated beast, because it’s composed of a number of enactments passed since 1867. It’s not particularly accessible to the average Canadian. The 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is probably the best-known part, followed by the division of powers between the federal and provincial governments, which dates back to 1867. Worshipping it is not at all common.
We don’t have anything like the 2nd Amendment.
Comparing the list of federal powers in Canada to the list of federal powers in the US, I’m always struck by how much the US list focuses on the powers of Congress in relation to the military. National defence is just mentioned once in our Constituion.
The difference in treatment is a clear indication that the US was born out of an armed revolution, while Canada from a peaceful political process.
« Peace, order and good government » is the closest thing we have to a constitutional mantra.
One other difference is that the US due process guarantee protects « life, liberty and property ».
Our equivalent provision protects « life, liberty, and security of the person ». Difference in emphasis there, with protection of the individual over protection of property.
Thanks to @MrDibble pointing me to some sources, I’ve read a bit about the process followed by South Africans to produce your constitution.
I was very impressed.
What about Magna Carta? Did she die in vain?
Every time I point out that the US Constitution is just words on parchment codifying a set of general agreements for maximizing personal liberty (as the authors saw fit exclusive of women and non-whites), delineating and restricting the powers of government, and providing for the common welfare defense which are also loaded with compromises and oversights that nearly the first act was to adopt the Bill of Rights substantially amending it, I get piled on by people insisting it us a work of fundamental genius which protects liberty, justice, and the nebulously defined “American Way” just by existing. They’re like English Bob explaining how the majesty of royalty “precludes the likelihood of assassination” right before getting the shit kicked out of him by Little Bill.
Stranger
Magna Carta’s mainly been repealed in England, through the regular statute law revision process. It was a medieval document, and a lot of the provisions became outdated.
The parts that are still in force relate to fundamental concepts of government, such as clause 1, which states that the church in England shall be free. Other surviving provisions relate to did process and the origins of the jury.
Superseded by things that did similar things, better. We have a constitution; it just isn’t in one single document, because it evolved over centuries.
Yes, agreed. Parliament was a much better solution than the council of 25 barons who could make war on the king.
The prohibition on weirs on the River Thames replaced by modern water management, and so on.
I’m an American living in Europe, but I’ve been here for many years and I’m a few months (fingers crossed) from earning my new passport, so I’ma answer. Neener neener.
Luxembourg has had a written constitution since 1841, but it’s a little complicated. We weren’t an independent country back then; we were sort of an autonomous microstate in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. That initial constitution didn’t define us as a country; it was more like a statement from the King defining our unique status and our rights within the larger body.
This was then amended several times, most notably in 1868. We kept being called an independent state, but in real-world practice we were always within the penumbra of some ruled territory or other. Our status was always a little murky until after WWI, at which point, in the fragmentary chaos, it was clear nobody was organized or powerful enough to claim dominion, and our independence was solidified for real (even if it had already been supposedly true on paper). This is all the subject of much good-natured debate here.
In any case, the Constitution is absolutely regarded as the supreme law, and is considered extremely important. However, at the same time, it’s not seen as sacred or inerrant, national scripture, the way it is in the US. From the beginning, there has been a tradition of its malleability according to evolving historical need.
We just adopted a new “modernized” Constitution in 2023, in fact. This followed several decades of stagnation, during which there was general agreement that the document needed revision, but the specifics were disputed. After a lengthy process of debate over a couple of generations (with some minor emergency patchwork here and there), the final version was approved, and is now in force.
Here’s an article about it.
The document quite extensively enumerates human rights, to a greater degree than the American constitution. It’s really quite remarkable. It also specifies guiding principles for integration into the European project, which enacting legislation must comply with and respect.
This has been getting a lot of news coverage in the years I’ve been here. I’d say the average citizen here is broadly familiar with the terms of the document, and is proud of it.
But worshipful? No. It’s a legal document, serving the needs of the people. And if it doesn’t serve those needs, we’ll tweak it again.
I agree, and well said (and same for @Northern_Piper).
I’m not as learned on constitutional issues as these fine folks, but this is how I see it. WIth respect to civil liberties, the Canadian Constitution is deliberately and by design not as absolutist as the American one, but the exceptions that may be deemed necessary in the public interest are very few and far between; for example, despite the guarantee of free speech, hate speech calling for genocide or inciting hatred against certain racial groups may be prohibited. Canadians are generally familiar with the Charter of Rights but they don’t worship it like the inviolable word of God. Most importantly, the Constitution is respected and followed by all three branches of government.
As I see it, many Americans – most notably those on the right – affect a sacred reverence for the Constitution that is reminiscent of the affected reverence for the Bible among the less savoury evangelicals. Which is to say, they claim to revere it as inviolable, but are happy to trash it when it’s not convenient by grossly misinterpreting it or citing the absence of some explicit prohibition as license to go ahead and freely do that thing.
It seems to me to be a hypocritical display of insincere reverence that is readily ignored when it happens to be convenient. Some of the examples that come to mind are the Heller ruling and its completely imaginary re-interpretation of the Second Amendment, the Citizens United ruling empowering the control of the political process by a wealthy plutocracy which poses an inherent threat to democracy itself, and recently the appalling overturning of abortion rights.
And of course, there’s the current administration, led by a convicted felon who might well be in jail today had he not been elected and had certain other events not coincidentally happen in his favour. Does anyone imagine that this gang of criminals and sociopaths consult the Constitution before blatantly violating all manner of civil rights, judicial order, and international law?
Thus the defiant declaration of British patriots, “you can have my weir when you take it from my cold, dead hands!”
It would be interesting to see what originalists and sovereign citizens would do with that provision.
Exactly. We may not refer to it constantly, but we understand it when we see it.
Just like pornography.