What a constitution is: definition, classification and sources
LUG-104 Constitutional Law-I, Unit I: Definition and classification of a constitution. · LLB · 60 min
The opening lecture of the paper. It defines a constitution, separates the document called the "Constitution of India" from the wider subject called "constitutional law", and works through the standard classifications: written and unwritten, rigid and flexible, federal and unitary, enacted and evolved. It closes with a first look at the five sources of constitutional law (text, organic laws, rules of procedure, judicial decisions, conventions), which Lecture 2 develops. The 2023-24 paper asked students to differentiate constitutional law from the Constitution; this lecture answers that question directly.
Objectives
- Explain what a constitution is, using the definitions of Aristotle, Bryce, Gilchrist, Wade and Phillips and Dicey.
- Distinguish the Constitution of India (the document) from the constitutional law of India (the body of law).
- Classify constitutions as written or unwritten, rigid or flexible, federal or unitary, enacted or evolved, and place the Indian Constitution in each pair.
- Apply Dicey's and Bryce's tests of rigidity to Article 368.
- List the five sources of constitutional law and the foreign models from which the Indian Constitution borrowed.
Slides
- What is a constitution? The classical definitions
- Constitution v constitutional law
- Written and unwritten constitutions
- Rigid and flexible constitutions: Dicey's and Bryce's tests
- Federal and unitary constitutions
- Enacted and evolved; and the other pairs
- Sources of constitutional law: an overview
- Where the Indian Constitution came from: borrowed features
- Is the Indian Constitution rigid or flexible? The record
- How the examiner asks it
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