Constitutions

"The overriding theme of the constitution was the concept that ultimate sovereignty over the political system belonged to God. Any other basis for sovereignty, whether the people, a ruling dynasty, or conformity to some alternate ideology, was un-Islamic and unacceptable. In the Islamic Republic, God’s will is expressed through the “rule of the just Islamic jurist,” the vilayat-e faqih. He is to advise the parliament and the president and has the power, at the rare times he may deem it necessary, to overrule the government or any part of the government. The first faqih of the Islamic Republic was Ayatollah Khomeini. His successors were to be selected by the Assembly of Experts. If no single individual was perceived qualified for the position, a committee of three or five could be selected to fill the role (Bakhash 1984; Hussain 1985). The Constitution of the Islamic Republic with the inclusion of the crucial vilayat-e faqih principle embodied the victory of the Shia fundamentalists over the other groups in the revolutionary alliance. The fundamentalists’ triumph was due to a number of factors. Of primary importance was Ayatollah Khomeini’s role as the dominant personality of the revolution. Because Khomeini and the fundamentalists enjoyed a much wider base of popular support than any of the other anti-shah groups, the fundamentalists controlled most of the revolutionary organizations (the komitehs and the revolutionary courts) and possessed by far the biggest militia, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, to enforce their will."

"The people of Iran are very talented people. They're heirs to one of the world's great civilizations. But in 1979, they were hijacked by religious zealots; religious zealots who imposed on them immediately a dark and brutal dictatorship. That year, the zealots drafted a constitution, a new one for Iran. It directed the revolutionary guards not only to protect Iran's borders, but also to fulfill the ideological mission of jihad. The regime's founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, exhorted his followers to "export the revolution throughout the world." I'm standing here in Washington, D.C. and the difference is so stark. America's founding document promises life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Iran's founding document pledges death, tyranny, and the pursuit of jihad. And as states are collapsing across the Middle East, Iran is charging into the void to do just that."

"The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran advances the cultural, social, political, and economic institutions of Iranian society based on Islamic principles and norms, which represent an honest aspiration of the Islamic Ummah. This aspiration was exemplified by the nature of the great Islamic Revolution of Iran, and by the course of the Muslim people's struggle, from its beginning until victory, as reflected in the decisive and forceful calls raised by all segments of the populations. Now, at the threshold of this great victory, our nation, with all its beings, seeks its fulfillment."

"The form of government of Iran is that of an Islamic Republic, endorsed by the people of Iran on the basis of their long-standing belief in the sovereignty of truth and Qur'anic justice, in the referendum of...(March 29 and 30, 1979], through the affirmative vote of a majority of 98.2% of eligible voters, held after the victorious Islamic Revolution led by the eminent marji' al-taqlid, Ayatullah al-Uzma Imam Khomeyni."

"A constitution, as Solon said, is good for a certain people and for a certain time. It shouldn’t be mummified."

"A constitution is made of a spirit, institutions, and a practice."

"The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive."

"If a written constitution is not in close accord with the way the society itself is constituted, it will be irrelevant to the everyday life of the people. A constitution will be a failure if it is no more than a beautiful portrait of an ugly society. But it must be more than an accurate depiction of how the society is constituted. A good constitution provides guidance and structure for the improvement of the society. A good constitution is designed to make the political society better than it is and the citizens better persons. It must be enough like the institutions and the people to be relevant to the working of the society, but it should also have what might be called formative features, a capacity to make us better if we live according to its provisions and adhere to its institutional arrangements."

"Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things."

"Constitutions are intended to preserve practical and substantial rights, not to maintain theories."

"Now and then, an extraordinary case may turn up, but constitutional law, like other mortal contrivances, has to take some chances, and in the great majority of instances, no doubt, justice will be done."

"By reducing too the faculty of borrowing within it's natural limits, it would bridle the spirit of war, to which too free a course has been procured by the inattention of money -lenders to this law of nature, that succeeding generations are not responsible for the preceding. On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual Constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it then, and what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct. They are masters too of their own persons, and consequently may govern them as they please. But persons and property make the sum of the objects of government. The constitution and the laws of their predecessors extinguished then in their natural course with those who gave them being. This could preserve that being till it ceased to be itself, and no longer. Every constitution then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years."

"Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves were they to rise from the dead."

"I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

"I was always for the liberties of the people for putting water to quench fire, or for putting banks to prevent inundation."

"Once a would-be authoritarian makes it to power, democracies face a second critical test: Will the autocratic leader subvert democratic institutions or be constrained by them? Institutions alone are not enough to rein in elected autocrats. Constitutions must be defended—by political parties and organized citizens, but also by democratic norms. Without robust norms, constitutional checks and balances do not serve as the bulwarks of democracy we imagine them to be. Institutions become political weapons, wielded forcefully by those who control them against those who do not. This is how elected autocrats subvert democracy—packing and “weaponizing” the courts and other neutral agencies, buying off the media and the private sector (or bullying them into silence), and rewriting the rules of politics to tilt the playing field against opponents. The tragic paradox of the electoral route to authoritarianism is that democracy’s assassins use the very institutions of democracy—gradually, subtly, and even legally—to kill it."

"I believe in the supremacy of the Constitution. The Malaysian Government will faithfully do its duty as guaranteed to minorities, rights guaranteed to the citizen and in some cases to the non-citizen also. The Constitution is not infallible, having been drafted by mere man. Hence the Constitution also provides for its amendment no doubt to make it compatible with changing times. But the conditions for amendments are such that the Constitution cannot be trifled with at will."

"A constitution that is made for all nations is made for none; it is a pure abstraction, an academic exercise made according to some hypothetical ideal, which should be addressed to man in his imaginary dwelling place."

"A constitution should be short and obscure."

"The Weimar Constitution is not a socialist constitution. But we stand by the principles enshrined in it—the principles of a state based on the rule of law, of equal rights, of social justice. In this historic hour, we German Social Democrats solemnly pledge ourselves to the principles of humanity and justice, of freedom and socialism. No Enabling Act gives you the power to destroy ideas that are eternal and indestructible."

"The problem in any constitutional change is the great care put to solve the problems of the past instead of grasping those of the future."

"So, while the people are indeed supreme over the written Constitution, the spiritual constitution is supreme over them. The French Revolutionists wrote constitutions too—every drunken writer among them tossed off a constitution. Where are they? All vanished. Why? Because they were not in harmony with the constitution of the universe. The power of the Constitution is not dependent on any Government, but on its inherent rightness and practicability."

"[It is] the noblest benefit ever received by any nation at any time. […] Stanislas II has earned a place among the greatest kings and statesmen in history."

"Despite all its shortcomings, this Constitution looms up against the background of Russian, Prussian and Austrian barbarism as the only work of liberty which Eastern Europe has ever created independently, and it emerged exclusively from the privileged class, from the nobility. The history of the world has never seen another example of such nobility of the nobility."

"Today I am speaking to all the Poles all over the world. Today is the 150th anniversary of the Constitution passed by your parliament. You are right to celebrate this day as a national holiday because, at the time when your Constitution of 1791 was drawn up, it was a model of enlightened political thought. The passing of that legal act was seen by your neighbours at that time as a dawn of a revival of the Polish state. Therefore they hurried to partition your country in order to prevent the consolidation of the Polish nation."

"It is difficult at this moment not to mention the long history of the Polish Parliament, reaching back to the 15th century, or that glorious witness to the legislative wisdom of our ancestors that was the Constitution of May the Third, 1791.""

"… founded principally on those of England and the United States of America, but avoiding the faults and errors of both, and adapt[ed] as much as possible to the local and particular circumstances of the country."

"[The] President seems a bad edition of a Polish King."

"[I will speak no more] of the former Poland and the Poles. That country and that name are no more, as with so many others in the history of the world. I am now forever a Russian."

"Every true Pole who has not been inveigled by the Prussian and royalist cabal, is convinced that the Country's salvation can come only from Russia, that otherwise the nation will be enslaved."

"The intentions of Her Highness the Empress of Russia [Catherine the Great], ally of the Polish Commonwealth, in introducing her army, are and have been none other than to restore to the Commonwealth and to Poles freedom, and in particular to all the country's citizens, security and happiness."

"… the last will and testament of the expiring Fatherland."