What is the difference between Constitution, Constitutional Law, Constitutionalism and Metaconstitution?

Thomas Paine

In the last post, we understood ‘generality’ as an essential characteristic of a constitution. Now we know that statutes are specific and Constitutions are general. Constitutions are supposed to last for a long period of time and they are also supposed to govern the country on all the matters. This ‘generality’ makes the constitution in the real sense of the term a ‘Darwinian Structure’. By ‘Darwinian Structure’, we mean that a Constitution consists of interconnected sub-theories and theories at different levels of abstraction. It is the judiciary that by interpreting the constitution makes it Darwinian.

In the present post, we will briefly understand the definitions relating to constitution, constitutional law, constitutionalism and metaconstitution.

1. Constitution means the codified bare text of the constitution and Constitutional law means the constitution as interpreted and construed by the courts. This interpretation or the construction which the courts do to the constitution is called constitutional law. Constitutional law becomes more important in some cases than the written text of the constitution. No student of law can understand a constitution unless he knows the constitutional law.

2. Every constitution or every written constitution has unwritten parts and every unwritten constitution has written parts. These unwritten parts ipso facto become a part of the written constitution and such parts are called as Meta Constitution.

3. Constitutionalism – This term can be interpreted in two ways:

A. Normative Interpretation – It means a government limited by the constitution. The basic purpose of a written constitution is to limit the powers of the government. In American Constitution, the President is elected by the people for a period of four years and during that period, he is not responsible to anybody. But this does not mean that he is above the constitution. His powers are subject to the limits that have been laid down by the constitution. It is said that the American System of Government is free government but under law.

B. Non-Normative Interpretation – In this sense, constitutionalism means the study of the deepest layers of the constitution. This includes questions like what are the fundamental pillars on which the constitution is based is to be studied. The purpose of such a study is to find out the commonality between various democratic constitutions so that we can find out certain fundamental layers that are common in all the constitutions. If at any time, we are moving towards World Government and World Constitution, then it must be known that what such a constitution would contain.

In the popular sense, constitutionalism means the limitations on the power of the government as laid down by the constitution.