Constitution and

Constitutionalism
What is a Constitution

▪ Fundamental rules or regulation that govern the

politics of a state.
▪ That govern the relationship between individual and
government
▪ Constitutions also establish, implicitly or
explicitly, a broader set of political values,
ideals and goals.
▪ To establish the duties, powers and functions of
the various institutions of government (
legislature, executive, judiciary) and define their
relationship
What does a constitution
ensure?
Ans:
o Order & Stability
o Values and ideals of a society
Constitutionalism

▪ The practice of Limited Government brought about

through the existence of a constitution.
▪ Government/state is powerful – more powerful than
an individual.
▪ Chances are there that the government may violate
any right of the individual
▪ Constitutionalism refers to a set of political
values and aspirations that reflect the desire to
protect individual right/liberty through the
establishment of internal and external checks on
government power
▪ Constitutionalism is therefore an idea of
Liberalism/ Individualism
Idea of Limited Government

Government is limited by
what?
Ans: By Constitution,

That is the idea of Constitutionalism

Criticisms

▪ It pays attention only to the formal and usually

legal organization of government.
▪ Socialists see it as a means of constraining
government power and thus of preventing meaningful
reform of the capitalist system. ( Socialism wants
the state to be powerful)
 ▪ 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 relation between the two are adjusted.
▪ It is a legal document known by different names like
1. ‘rules of the state’,
2. ‘instrument of the government’
3. ‘fundamental law of the land’
G.C. Lewis

▪ The term constitution signifies the arrangement and distribution of

the sovereign power in the community, or the form of government.-.
Gilchrist

▪ The constitution of a state is that body of rules and laws, written or

unwritten, which determines the organisation of government, the
distribution of powers to the various organs of government, and the
general principles on which these powers are to be exercised.--- R.N.
George Jellinik

▪ A constitution is a body of juridical rules which determine the

supreme organs of the state, which prescribes their mode of creation,
their mutual relation, their sphere of action, and, finally, the
fundamental place of each of them in their relation to the state—
James Mc Intosh

▪ A constitution is a body of those written or unwritten fundamental

laws which regulate the most important rights of the higher
magistrates and the most essential privileges of the subjects.---