Constituent Authority

References (54)

1. THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, para. 2.
2. The development is carefully recounted in GORDON S. WOOD, THE CREATION OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC, 1776-1787 (1969). On the temporal priority of the Ameri- can over French ideas of constituent power, see CLAUDE KLEIN, TH ÉORIE ET PRATIQUE DU POUVOIR CONSTITUANT 7-18 (1996).
3. Richard S. Kay, The Illegality of the Constitution, 4 CONST. COMM. 57 (1987) [hereinafter Kay, Illegality].
4. James Wilson, Lectures on Law, in 1 THE WORKS OF JAMES WILSON 375 (James DeWitt Andrews ed., 1896).
5. JONATHAN ELLIOT, 2 DEBATES IN THE SEVERAL STATE CONVENTIONS ON THE ADOPTION OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION 432 (2d ed. 1891).
6. THE FEDERALIST NO. 40 at 253 (James Madison) (C. Rossiter ed., 1961).
7. SIEY ÈS, supra note 6 at 128, 131.
8. Quoted in Jon Elster, Arguing and Bargaining in Two Constituent Assemblies,
9. J. CONST. L. 346, 370 (2000) [hereinafter Elster, Arguing].
10. See BRUCE ACKERMAN, WE THE PEOPLE: FOUNDATIONS 6-10 (1991).
11. SIEY ÈS, supra note 6, at 127. "Constituent power always remains alien to law." GEORGES BURDEAU, 4 TRAITE DES SCIENCES POLITIQUES 171 (1983) quoted in ANTONIO NEGRI, INSURGENCIES: CONSTITUENT POWER AND THE MODERN STATE 1 (1999). But see William E. Scheuerman, Revolutions and Constitutions: Hannah Arendt's Challenge to Carl Schmitt, 10 CAN J. L. & JURIS. 141, 149-50 (1997) arguing that Sieyès thought the constituent power was limited by natural law.
12. Max Weber, The Three Types of Legitimate Rule, 4 BERKELEY PUB. IN SOC. INST. 1 (trans. Hans Gerth., 1958).
13. Ulrich Preuss, Constitutional Powermaking for the New Polity: Some Deliber- ations on the Relations Between Constituent Power and the Constitution, 14 CARDOZO L. REV. 639, 640 (1993) [hereinafter Preuss, Powermaking]. See also Ulrich Preuss, The Roundtable Talks in the German Democratic Republic, 99 [hereinafter Preuss, Roundtable], in THE ROUNDTABLE TALKS AND THE BREAKDOWN OF COMMUNISM (Jon Elster ed., 1996) [hereinafter ROUNDTABLE TALKS] (describing a revolution as "a pe- 27.
14. Weber, supra note 19, at 1.
15. H.L.A. HART, THE CONCEPT OF LAW 110 (2d ed. 1994). For a recent elabora- tion, see Benjamin C. Zipursky, Legal Obligations and the Internal Aspect of Rules, 75 FORDHAM L. REV.1229 (2007).
16. SIEY ÈS, supra note 6 at 126 . See also id. ("The national will . . . never needs anything but its own existence to be legal."). See NEGRI, supra note 18, at 5 ("Whereas the order of the constituted power is that of the Sollen (what ought to be) the order of the constituent power is that of the Sein (what is).").
17. SCHMITT, supra note 1, at 64.
18. HART, supra note 28, at 57. As I will discuss further below, the effectiveness of a constitution depends on two critical factors, the acceptability of its content and the authority of its makers. I am mainly concerned in this paper with the latter although, as I will discuss, the two are not perfectly separate. See Richard S. Kay, Constitu- tional Chrononomy, 13 RATIO JURIS 31 (2000) [hereinafter, Kay, Chrononomy]. 32. On the complicated symbiotic relationship of constitutional legitimacy, politi- cal effectiveness, and social stability, see SEYMOUR MARTIN LIPSET, POLITICAL MAN: THE SOCIAL BASES OF POLITICS 64-70 (1960).
19. Carl J. Friedrich, Authority, Reason and Discretion, in AUTHORITY (NOMOS VOL.
20. See Larry Alexander & Frederick Schauer, Rules of Recognition, Constitu- tional Controversies, and the Dizzying Dependence of Law on Acceptance, in THE RULE OF RECOGNITION AND THE U.S. CONSTITUTION 175, 177-80 (Matthew Adler & Kenneth Himma eds., 2009) See also Michelman, Authorship, supra note 2, at 73 ("[F]ull knowledge of a social practice includes knowledge of how participants in the practice experience it, 'from the inside' so to speak . . .").
21. "[T]he point seems to have been to enact the new constitution without refer- ence to the old." MARRKU SUKSI, MAKING A CONSTITUTION: THE OUTLINE OF AN ARGUMENT 71 (quoting ANGELA CLIFFORD, THE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF EIRE/IRE- LAND 88-90 (1983));
22. Richard S. Kay, Comparative Constitutional Fundamentals, 6 CONN. J. INT'L L. 445, 455-58 (1991) [hereinafter Kay, Comparative].
23. Committee on Constitution, Canadian Bar Association, TOWARDS A NEW CA- NADA 6 (1978) quoted in PETER W. HOGG, CANADIAN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 59, n.42 (Student ed. 2006). See also KENNETH C. WHEARE, THE CONSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE COMMONWEALTH 89-113 (1960, reprinted Greenwood Press, 1982).
24. Quoted in Elster, Bootstrapping, supra note 76, at 557.
25. Among many versions of this figure of speech, see Rapanos v. United States,
26. U.S. 715, 754 n.14 (2006) (plurality opinion of Scalia, J. joined by Roberts C.J. and Thomas and Alito JJ.).
27. In this section and the next, I will use the italic font to indicate that I am speaking of the people as a will-bearing entity that could exercise constituent author- ity. Quotations will not be altered. Sieyés and many subsequent writers referred to the constituent power of "the nation." But as Thomas Paine was shortly to write, the meaning was the same. See THOMAS PAINE, THE RIGHTS OF MAN (1791), in THE LIFE AND MAJOR WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE, 381 (Philip Foner ed., 1974).
28. See Pavlos Eleftheriadis, Law and Sovereignty 3-4 (Oct. 9, 2009). Oxford Legal Studies Research Paper No. 42/2009, available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1486084. 108. Constitutional Charter of June 14, 1814, reproduced at http://www.napoleon- series.org/research/government/legislation/c_charter.html. See Jaume, supra note 35, at 76. 109. Constitution of Sardinia (Mar. 1848).
29. JUSTINE DAVIS RANDERS-PEHRSON, GERMANS AND THE REVOLUTION OF 1848- 1849, 403-38 (2001).
30. ERGUN ÖSBUDUM & ÖMER F. Ö ÇKAYA, DEMOCRATIZATION AND THE POLITICS OF CONSTITUTION-MAKING IN TURKEY 8-9 (2009).
31. SCHMITT, supra note 1, at 77, 18-130.
32. Kuwait Constitution, 1962; The Basic Law of the Sultanate of Oman, 1996; Permanent Constitution of the State of Qatar, 2004. See also Constitution of Brunei Darussalem, 1984. 114. Constitution of the Kingdom of Bahrain, 2002.
33. ACKERMAN, supra note 17, at 6. For a sensitive discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of legislative constitution-making, see Jon Elster, Legislatures as Constituent Assemblies, in THE LEAST EXAMINED BRANCH: THE ROLE OF LEGISLATURES IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL STATE 181 (Richard W. Bauman & Tsvi Kahana eds., 2006) [hereinafter Elster, Legislatures].
34. Elster, Legislatures, supra note 157, at 182.
35. E.g., Constitution of France, 1958, art. 89; Bahrain Constitution, 2002, art. 120. 160. Introductory Note, The People's Republic of Bangladesh, in Constitutions of Countries of the World, available at http://www.oceanalaw.com/gateway/gateway.asp ?ID=31&SessionID={4030D653-5F6D-4EF3-BB55-2346A7038EF8}. On the various institutional combinations of legislative and constituent authority, see Elster, Legis- latures, supra note 157, at 182-83.
36. See Kay, Illegality, supra note 11, at 72-75.
37. Obviously, I am only stating not defending this proposition. I attempt to elab- orate this purpose of constitutions in Richard S. Kay, American Constitutionalism, in CONSTITUTIONALISM: PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS 16 (Larry Alexander ed., 1998).
38. See Stephen Holmes, Precommitment and the Paradox of Democracy, in CON- STITUTIONALISM AND DEMOCRACY 195, 221 (Jon Elster & Rune Slagstad eds., 1988).
39. See Frank I. Michelman, Reply to Ming-Sung Kuo, 7 I-CON 715, 722 (2009) [hereinafter Michelman, Reply]. For an attempt to describe a single, popular tempo- rally extended political entity, see, e.g., JED RUBENFELD, FREEDOM AND TIME: A THEORY OF CONSTITUTIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT (2001).
40. ROUSSEAU, supra note 122, at Book III Ch. 13, Ch. 18.
41. See generally ROUNDTABLE TALKS, supra note 20.
42. Rumyana Kolarova & Dimitr Dimitrov, The Roundtable Talks in Bulgaria, in ROUNDTABLE TALKS, supra note 20, at 178, 190, 193. It should be noted that the Roundtable in Bulgaria did provide for the subsequent election of a Constituent As- sembly that undertook further constitutional revision without substantive restriction. Id. at 201, 209-10.
43. See text at infra notes 198-211.
44. The short-lived transformation of the Finnish constitution (still under Rus- sian suzerainty) in 1906 was effected by the unanimous assent of the four "orders" of the Finnish Diet. SUKSI, supra note 96, at 80-81.
45. Thomas Paine, Constitutional Reform (1805), in THE THOMAS PAINE READER 525, 536 (Michael Foot & Isaac Kramnick eds., 1987). 195. See Section III(B) supra.
46. Interim Constitution of South Africa, 1993, Schedule 4, Constitutional Princi- ples XI, XII.
47. Interim Constitution of South Africa, 1993, Schedule 4, Constitutional Princi- ples I, II, VI. 207. Interim Constitution of South Africa, 1993, s. 74. 208. Certification of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (1996) 4 SA 744, para. 12 (CC).
48. SIEY ÈS supra note 6, at 127. The model of constitution-making constrained by pre-determined constitutional principles had already been employed, although, less smoothly, in Portugal in 1974-1976 and played a role, as well, in the extended, vio- lence-ridden process pursued in Angola beginning in 1992 and culminating in the certification of a new constitution by the Constitutional Court in 2010. See Andre Thomashaussen, Constituent Power and Legitimacy in the Political Evolution of Southern Africa, 7-9 (2010) (manuscript on file with the author).
49. Interim Constitution of South Africa, 1993, Preamble.
50. On the Multi-Party Negotiating Process's "problems with legitimacy," see DION A. BASSON, SOUTH AFRICA'S INTERIM CONSTITUTION: TEXT AND NOTES xxi (1994). Notwithstanding these facts, the Interim Constitution's preamble, like that of the fi- nal Constitution, included the canonical declaration that it was enacted by "We the people." Interim Constitution of South Africa 1993, Preamble.
51. R.S.A. Act 200 (1993) enacted under the authority of the South Africa Consti- tution Act 110 of 1983 s.99.
52. ERNEST RENAN, QU'EST-CE UNE NATION: WHAT IS A NATION? 49 (Wanda Romer Taylor trans., 1997).
53. See WHEARE, supra note 97, at 89-113; Kay, Comparative, supra note 96, at 455-58 (discussing the Irish Constitution).
54. Quoted in William Dale, Making and Remaking of Commonwealth Constitu- tions, 42 INT. & COMP. L.Q. 67, 69 (1993). Deploring the fact that many of the original Caribbean Independence Constitutions had been left unchanged, Simeon C.R. McIn- tosh has recently argued that "a country's processes for fundamental law making [should] be so designed and conducted that outcomes will be continually apprehensi- ble as products of 'collective deliberation' conducted rationally and fairly among free and equal individuals." Simeon C.R. McIntosh, West Indian Constitutional Author- ship 2, available at http://www.eccourts.org/jei_doc/2008/book_launch/WestIndian ConstitutionalAuthorshipbySimeonMcIntosh.pdf (quoting Seyla Benhabib).