Constitutions
Assessment of the Constitution
The US Constitution is a framework of a set of rules to establish the duties, powers and functions of the various institutions of government, regulates the relationship between them and define the relationship between the state and the individual. It defines the separation of powers within the national government so that a series of checks and balances to ensure that no one branch of government takes more power than allowed by the constitution. The federal relationship between national government and the states is entrenched within the Constitution. The dividing of power between government and state enabled a stronger national government to co-ordinate the nation but avoiding the danger of excessive central control.
The republican constitution is described as written and codified because it is written down in a single document with its sources being the document itself and so is organised into a clear set of principles and rules. This is a general term for the constitution because parts it are not codified, such as, the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review, congressional committees, presidential primaries, political parties, pressure groups or the provisions of the 1973 War Powers Act. It is however, written and codified as oppose to unwritten and uncodified where the sources of the constitution would be derived from a number of areas of possible varying status. It would not be organised into one accessible, easily understood and official reference point for students of government or for the ordinary citizen.
A term also used to describe the Constitution is rigid, most codified constitutions are rigid and most uncodified constitutions are flexible. The rigid classification can be made according to the Constitution’s ease of amendment. In order for any changes to be made to the US Constitution lengthy procedures must take place. These rules of the constitution like the rest of it are followed very carefully allowing it to be labelled as efficient as it matches up the theory in practice. Congress was given the right to initiate an amendment by supermajority of two-thirds in each chamber. All the legislatures of two-thirds of the states could request Congress to summon a national Convention to discuss and draft amendments. Whichever procedure was adopted, there must be approval from three-quarters of the states before an amendment entered into force as well as a two-thirds supermajority to pass a bill over the president's veto. It is these procedures which have allowed only twenty-seven amendments, those which have shared a large consensus such as extending the vote to women. The judicial review does, however, allow some flexibility as the Supreme Court can declare acts of Congress, the executive branch or any acts of state government to be unconstitutional and thereby null and void. This is due to its own interpretation of such acts compared with their interpretation of the sections of the Constitution that are relevant. For example, the Supreme Court has made important interpretative amendments to the constitution concerning the civil rights of African-Americans, capital punishment and abortion. Thus, under the American Constitution there are two ways of amending it – by formal amendment or interpretative amendment by the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review.
