Week 1: Basic Principles

Question 1

What are the 3 principles of a liberal regime

Answer 1

○ Protection of the private sphere: as mentioned before a distinction between the
private and public sphere. A liberal democracy must protect this are of people’s
lives.
○ Respect for minority rights: just because a majority may have an opinion or
desire to inflict harm on the minority doesn’t mean that they should be able to do
so, the minority should always be protected and not be discriminated against.
○ The rule of law: Citizens must be able to depend on a just system of law and
order that ensures that no one is above the law, the law is applied equally to all
people in all cases, and that government’s authority is grounded in some legal
authority insofar as to constrain its abuse of powers.

Question 2

What are the 4 functions of a constitution

Answer 2

Establish what person or persons will exercise the various forms of political
authority
■ Legislative power: the power to make law and set public policy
■ Executive power: the power to carry out and administer law or policy
■ Judiciary power: the power to settle questions about specific violations of
law
○ The second major function is to provide a decision of powers between national
and provincial governments in federal states
■ Such a division could be done by drawing up two lists, but things usually
pop up in the future that causes disputes and overlaps between the two
that were unimagined at the time the list was constructed. That’s why it’s
typical to have a list of specific jurisdictions reserved for one power with
“residual power” (everything else) being reserved for the other.
○ The third major function is the delineate the limits of governmental power. The
idea of a constitution is that it is supreme and government is subordinate to it.
○ Final and fourth function is to provide an orderly way to make changes or
amendments to it as time passes things in the constitution become not so
applicable.

Question 3

Constitutional conventions, organic statutes, and entrenched constitutional act

Answer 3

Conventions: these are customs enforced politically. There is no law that people must
shake hands with the right hand but it’s the way people do things, conventions are not
enforced by anyone but it is expected that voters will know those conventions and will
guard them so that the consequences of political leaders deviating from them will result
in political consequences. The vote of no confidence is a convention. Constitutional
principles such as democracy are essentially given effect through conventions such as
the convention of confidence. They evolve and are flexible.
● Constitutional law: rules of a constitutional nature that are enforced by courts.
○ Organic statutes: Statutes establishing constitutional rules are called organic
statutes, they deal with organs of the regime.
○ Entrenched constitutional act: they are also legally enforceable but they differ
because they are the supreme law of the regime. Organic statutes are passed in
a simple majority, but these require extraordinary consent - a public referendum
for example. They are grounded in Locke’s social contract theory that the
government while it represents the people, but act in the conditions stipulated in
the social contract because its legitimacy depends on that contract
■ Federal divisions of power for example are entrenched so that
constitutional rules could only change with a clear consent from both
levels
■ Entrenchment provides the most effective means of guaranteeing citizens
rights and freedoms, a government could discriminate against minorities
and ignore conventions if it had strong public support, or repeal statutes if
it majority support. No matter how much support politicians have, they
cannot legally adopt measures that violate entranced guarantees.
○ Organic statutes typically deal with one actor, such as parliament, but entrenched
acts are usually foundational instruments and more comprehensive.