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POLI 101 Week 3 - Constitution

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11 views4 pages

POLI 101 Week 3 - Constitution

Uploaded by

marciehrist
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Sept 21 (week 3 - Constitution)

Constitutions - Legal rules setting out the structure and principles of a regime
- Broad set of documents and principles making up one standard
- Functions (Expectations for what it is trying to achieve)
- Exercise Authority (MII)
- Legislative Powers (Make Laws)
- Idea to an implementable law
- Executive Powers (Implement Laws)
- In charge of implementing said laws
- Judicial Powers (Interpret Laws)
- Make sure the laws are met and enforced
- The constitution phrases is quite mislead to who enforces laws
- Seems to insinuate that the crown holds the power, whereas that is
not the case in practice
- Divide Power
- Constitutional assignments in a federation
- Clarity and accountability
- Federal, provincial and municipal levels of government
- Sectioned by ministers
- Limit Government
- Preserve liberty
- Charter of rights and freedoms limits government
- Future Amendment
- Some sense of where sovereignty lies
- Constitution is amended by super majority of provinces and of population
- Not easy, and as such limit potential changes people still want to make
- “Can of worms” (try to amend one issue, suddenly all topics need to be
rehashed and discussed)
- Forms (Different ways it is designed to complete these functions)
- Conventions
- Constitutional conventions
- Unwritten; no formal agreement
- Reflect implicit political agreement; voters have ultimate say
- Enforced politically, not judicially
- Flexible (debatable content)
- Implicit agreement
- Mix of Law and Politics
- Law: precedent/history & binding rules
- Politics: enforcement & flexibility
- Laws
- Constitutional laws
- Written, irrevocable, entrenched law
- Comprehensive codifications
- Permanent and universal commitment
- Not ‘mere’ legislation
- Organic statues
- Regular pieces of legislation, which have constitution content and deal with
constitutional functions (defined by content)
- UK’s “unwritten constitution”
- More detail, but not entrenched law
- Still revocable
- Interminable, impermanent
- Examples: parliament act, supreme court act, constitution act (BC), election
law, human rights legislation, ((international treaties))
- Each method designed for a mix of efficiency and specificity
Sept 23
Social - John Locke
Contract - Naturally free and equal humans form civil society
- Write a social contract to govern themselves
- Formative moment
- Pact, emanating from the will of people

Levels of - Most: Constitution


Entrenchment - (Planes)
- Medium: Organic Statute
- (Trains)
- Least: Convention
- (Automobiles)

American - Best example of Constitutional Law


Constitution - Practical reasons
- Federalism
- Presumed to be most effective protections from abuse
- Each state has a constitution, but fluctuate greatly due to state majority being all that is needed
to confirm change
- Apply to the times (what is important in the moment)

Canada’s - Has all three forms of constitution, described by 2 core documents


Constitution - Document 1:
- Constitution Act (1867)
- United 4 colonies (federalism)
- NB, NS, ON, QU: “Dominion of Canada”
- Created provinces
- Divided power between government levels (sections 91 and 92)
- Federated court structure
- Process for new entrants
- Wanted in order to fend off USA expansionism
- Sort of described MII, but not honestly
- Big omissions (no PM)
- Implied responsible government, rights and change
- Outlines exec and legis powers (greatly conditioned in practice by
convention - dishonest?) (nothing to restrict the crown, when reading the
constitution you would expect the crown to do a lot more than what they do
in reality)
- No bill of rights
- No process for amendment
- “A constitution similar in principle to that of the UK”

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