Would be defined, as Lord Bolingbrooke once put it, as “the whole assemblage of laws, institutions, traditions, customs, and practices that embody how we are governed”. Parts of that ‘unwritten constitution’ are of course written down, but that is immaterial: what they lack, and what makes the term ‘unwritten constitution’ as self–contradictory as an ‘unfloating boat’ or ‘inedible food’, is supreme and fundamental law status. Form and function can’t be separated.
Published in Chapter:
The Role of the Constitution in Establishing Legality in the State
Valeria Gonitashvili (Ukrainian Youth Organization of Georgia, Georgia)
Copyright: © 2022
|Pages: 9
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-4543-3.ch011
Abstract
Constitution (from lat. constitutio – “device, establishment, addition”) is the basic law of the state, a special normative legal act that has the highest legal force. The constitution defines the foundations of the political, legal, and economic systems of the state. The constitution is the founding document of the state, which sets out the main goals of the creation of the state. In the vast majority of countries, the constitution is adopted by a constituent assembly or by referendum. The constitution is given the following legal designation: a normative legal act of the highest legal force of the state (or state-territorial commonwealth in interstate associations), fixing the foundations of the political, economic, and legal systems of this state or commonwealth, the foundations of the legal status of the state and the individual, their rights and obligations.