A constitution is, as Article VI of the United States Constitution declares, the fundamental law of the land, supreme as a legal matter over any other nonconstitutional law. But that almost banal statement raises a number of theoretically vexed issues.
CONSTITUTIONALISM AND THE RULE OF LAW: CONSIDERING THE CASE FOR ANTECEDENTS ROGERS M. SMITH* As a scholar of constitutionalism, I found Tom Ginsburg's, Consti-
An uncodified constitution does not require a supreme court - if a state has a codified constitution, it must have a supreme court, a court that interprets the constitution. The problem with that is that it brings judges into disputes with the legislature (parliament) and executive (government).
Constitutions are either unitary or federal. A unitary system is governed constitutionally as one single unit, with one constitutionally created legislature. This means that all powers of the Government are centralized in one Government that is Central Government.
The Treaty Clause empowers the President to make or enter into treaties with the "advice and consent" of two-thirds of the Senate. In contrast, normal legislation becomes law after approval by simple majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives and the signature of the President.
The major difference between a republic and a monarchy is the fact that a monarchy is ruled by a monarch, i.e. a king or a queen, whereas in a republic, the people choose who they want to rule them. Both the republic and the monarchy are old forms of government.
The constitution of any advanced democracy includes both legal and political forces and constraints; the question is not whether the UK has a political or legal constitution, but the appropriate balance between political and legal forces and constraints in any particular context and the wider lessons to be drawn for our understanding of the constitution. Exploring developments such as prisoners’ right to vote will be key to assessing the contemporary balance between these two traditions.
A constitutional parliamentary democracy is a political system in which parliament selects the government through elections and is limited by constitutional laws. Through this system, the government is responsible to both the people and the parliament.