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Links to Materials on Constitution Making Processes


There are a number of websites with information about constitution making processes in other countries.

International IDEA (an intergovernmental organization based in Stockholm) has had a research project on constitution making processes. On their website you can find a paper by Kirsti Samuels drawing together some of the conclusions from this study. Constitution Building Processes and Democratization: A Discussion of Twelve Case Studies. You can click to the actual case studies (which include those on Kenya and Fiji mentioned on the page on Other Constitution Making Processes in this website) here. The other countries are: Colombia (in English and Spanish), Afghanistan Guatemala, Nigeria, Hungary, Rwanda, Chile, Indonesia, East Timor and Bahrain.

Also on this website you can find a paper by Yash Ghai and Guido Galli on Constitution Building Processes and Democratization

United States Institute of Peace (USIP) has done some work on constitution making. You can read two papers by Vivien Hart: "Owning the Constitution: A Path to Peace?" and "Democratic Constitution Making"

Iraq: A number of organizations followed the constitution making process in Iraq. USIP was one of these, and you can read "Iraq's Constitutional Process: Shaping a Vision for the Country's Future".

Afghanistan: On the constitution making process in Afghanistan, the Center on International Cooperation at New York University has a good deal of material - click here.

Israel: the Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee of the Israeli Parliament (Knesset) is currently working a written Constitution for the country. There is a website on this project, including a Draft Constitution submitted in 2006.

The International NGO Conciliation Resources has been involved in peace-building in a number of countries, and has some useful commentaries and collection of documents on its website including on the settlement in Bougainville (Papua New Guinea) and on Sudan. There are some articles in its journal Accord on the constitution making process in South Africa: Eldred De Klerk "South Africa's negotiated transition: context, analysis and evaluation" and Catherine Barnes and Eldred De Klerk "South Africa's multi-party constitutional negotiation process".

And you can find reports and documents from Constitution Commissions and similar bodies:

Australia (Constitutional Convention 1998)

Mauritius - see Report of the Commission on Constitutional and Electoral Reform 2001/02 (Sachs Commission report - chaired by a very distinguished member of the South African Constitutional Court)

Malawi: there is some very interesting material on the website of the Malawi Law Commission which is in charge of the current process of constitutional review

Zambia is another African country going through a constitutional review process. In fact it has had several constitutions and constitution commission. Like many African countries it went through a period of one-party rule. You can read the Report of the Mvunga Commission - making proposal for a multi-party constitution (1991). More recently the Mung'omba Constitution Review Commission made proposals for a new Constitution - you can read the Interim Report and draft Constitution. Various reports, including the Chona Commission on the One-Party state are available here.

Japan: in 2005 a Research Commission produced a Report on the Review of the Japanese Constitution: there is a Handbook in English on this.

India: you can read the Report of the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (2002).

Uganda - although Uganda had a new constitution in the mid-1990s after a comprehensive review process, there have been further suggestions for change. You can read the report of the Review Commission in 2003. In fact the Constitution was amended following this report. You can find links to relevant material at Uganda Law on Line.

Philippines - their Constitution has been in existence since 1987. But there have been some reviews, but no major changes. There was a report in 2005 - you can read the majority report here and the minority report. On interesting aspect of this was that one topic of discussion was whether to introduce a federal system. The minority was opposed to this.

Thailand - Thailand has had many constitutions (see a list). The 1997 Constitution was thought generally to be a very good one, but it was overthrown by a coup in 2006. A new Constitution was prepared by a Constitution Drafting Committee and Constitution Drafting Assembly, and approved in a referendum in 2007. The website of the process is in Thai, but there is a Press Release summarising the 2007 Constitution in English, explaining some of the major changes and the reasons for them.

Kenya - There was a process of constitution making in Kenya between 2000 and 2004 which did not lead to the adoption of a new Constitution. The timeline was like this:
  • 2001 Official Government Constitution Commission begins its work
  • 2002 Constitution Commission produced report and draft constitution after extensive public consultation
  • 2003 National Constitutional Conference begins to sit (after delay caused by election as all MPs were members of the National Constitutional Conference)
  • March 2004 NCC produced draft Constitution
  • Court case decides there must be a referendum
  • 2004-5 Government amends draft to remove aspects it does not care for
  • November 255 Referendum rejects draft.
The Constitution Commission in Kenya produced two reports. One was designed to introduce the proposed changes in a simple and interesting way for the ordinary reader. It was published at the same time as the Commission's proposed Draft Constitution. You can read that report here: The People's Choice: The Short Report of the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission. The other report was produced after the Constituent Assembly had finished its work and is not available in electronic form. It was very long.

You can read on this website:

An account of the Kenyan process written by Yash Ghai and Jill Cottrell of CASU

The People's Choice: The Short Report of the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission.

The Draft Constitution adopted in 2004 by the National Constitutional Conference

A brief account dated Feb 22 2008 relating all this to the recent unhappy events in Kenya.

Some material from Constitution of Kenya Review Commission is available on the Commonwealth Legal Information website, though the CKRC website has ceased to exist.
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