Topic 7: Concepts of constitution

• Constitution - Refers to that body of rules and principles in accordance with which the powers of sovereignty are regularly exercised.
• Constitution - It also refers to a body of fundamental laws, rules, customs, norms, standards, and principles according to which the government operates and its relations with the citizens are defined.
• Nature and purpose of constitution

  • Serves as the supreme or fundamental law
  • Establishes basic framework and underlying principles of government
• Constitution - It is a charter creating the government.
• Constitution - It is supreme or fundamental law as it speaks for the entire people from whom it derives its claim to obedience.
• Constitution - It is binding on all individual citizens and all organs of the government.
• Constitution - It is the law to which all other laws must conform.
• Constitution - Its purpose is to prescribe the permanent framework of the system of government and to assign to the different branches, their respective power and duties, and to establish certain basic principles on which the government is founded.
• Kinds of constitution

  • As to their origin and history
  • Conventional or enacted
  • Cumulative or evolved
  • As to their form
  • Written
  • Unwritten
  • As to manner of amending them
  • Rigid or inelastic
  • Flexible or elastic
• Conventional or enacted - enacted by a constituent assembly or granted by a monarch to his subjects.
• Cumulative or evolved - it is a product of growth or a long period of development originating in customs, traditions, judicial decisions rather that from a deliberate and formal enactment.
• Written - definite written form at a particular time, usually by a specially constituted authority called a constitutional convention and ratified by the people.
• Unwritten - entirely the product of political evolution, consisting largely of a mass of customs, usages and judicial decisions together with a smaller body of statutory enactments.
• Rigid or inelastic - cannot be amended or altered except by some special machinery more cumbrous that the ordinary legislative process.
• Flexible or elastic - no higher legal authority than ordinary laws and which may be altered in the same way as other laws.
• Note: The constitution of the Philippines is a written instrument by which the fundamental powers of the government are established, limited, and defined. It may also be classified as conventional or enacted, and rigid or inelastic.
• A constitution is a legislation direct from the people while a statute is a legislation from the people’s representatives.
• A constitution merely states the general framework of the law and the government, while a statute provides the details of the subject of which it treats.
• A constitution is intended not merely to meet existing conditions but to govern the future, while a statute is intended to primarily meet existing conditions only.
• A constitution is the supreme or fundamental law of the state to which statutes and all other laws must conform.