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The Variety of Processes


There is a great deal of previous experience in making constitutions. The oldest constitution in the world today is that of the USA. You can read about the way it was made on the USConstitution.org website - click here (with a very detailed timeline of the process here) - or on the Library of Congress website - click here. Most other constitutions were made during the 20th century. There is no standard process for making constitutions. The following table gives an outline of the process in a few countries:

USA
4 months (1787)		 Fiji
27 months
(1995-7)		 East Timor
6 months
(2001-2)		 India
3 years
(1946-9)		 Kenya
3 years
(2001-4)
Constitutional Convention -representatives from each state

Debate in Convention

Committee of Detail prepared rough draft

Further debate

Committee of Style prepared final draft

Constitution adopted by Convention

Approved by individual states

 Constitution Commission

Public consultation

Report to Parliament

Some changes by Parliamentary Select Committee

Passed by full Parliament

 Public consultation

Constituent Assembly elected

Sat in committees

Reports put together for full draft

Public Consultation

Plenary adopted

Approved by UN

 Constituent Assembly

Committees of Constituent Assembly reported

Full Assembly adjourned

Drafting Committee produced draft constitution

Draft published for comment of Constituent Assembly and public

Draft debated, passed and adopted by Constituent Assembly

 Constitution Commission

Hearings around country

Commission produced Draft

Public consultation

Constituent Assembly met

Divided into committees

Debated and adopted final draft Constitution

Changed by Government

Referendum rejected draft


All these processes involved either a Constitution Commission or a Constituent Assembly or both. Some involved significant amounts of public consultation (notably Kenya and to a lesser extent Fiji). Only Kenya involved a referendum (and that was not in the original scheme of things). Some took far longer than others; East Timor's process was very short because the United Nations was putting great pressure on the Constituent Assembly to finish. All of them except Kenya led to the adoption of a new Constitution.

You can read some information about some of these processes: a short account of the Kenya process and a longer account (on the International IDEA website). There is a discussion of the Fiji process (on the International IDEA website). The records of the Indian Constituent Assembly are also available on the internet.

One process that is currently going on is that in Bolivia in South America. You can read an account of that process here.

A number of countries have had Constituent Assemblies - you can see a list of some of them (not all) on the Wikipedia website.

The Scottish Constitutional Convention sat to consider the arrangements for devolution of power within the UK to Scotland. You can read its report here.

Constitution Commissions have become a common feature of recent constitution making processes, and you can read about this idea here.

You can click here for other links on constitution making in various countries.
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