Constitution

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The constitution of a country (or a state) is a special type of law that tells how its government is supposed to work. It tells how the country's leaders are to be chosen and how long they get to stay in office, how new laws are made and old laws are to be changed or removed, what kind of people are eligible to vote and what other rights they are guaranteed, and how the constitution can be changed.

Limits are put on the Government in how much power they have within the Constitution (see Rule of Law ). On the other hand, countries with repressive or corrupt governments frequently do not stick to their constitutions, or have bad constitutions. This can be known as dictatorship or simply "bending the rules". A Constitution is often a way of a uniting within a Federation.

The UK Constitution

Scholars don't agree whether the UK has a Constitution or not. There is a debate because the UK has parts of its Constitution codified (written) and uncodified (not written). If the constitution is uncodified, then sources for the agreement are still accessible, they are just written in different various political books or tradition, instead of written all in one place like a codified Constitution.

[edit] History

The Magna Carta of England, written in 1215, was an early type of constitution. The first modern constitution in the world was that of the United States in 1787, but some Native American tribes had similar charters before that.

The U.S. has one of the oldest constitutions that people are still using, and it has been changed (amended) many times over the years. It was made after the colonists won their independence from Britain. At first they had the Articles of Confederation, but the Articles were weak and had obvious problems, so they were replaced with the Constitution.