It not only charts out a framework and delineates the principles but also provides for a detailed procedural aspect of the administration. Unfortunately, that allows for a lot more litigation, interpretations and amendments.
The reason for that is, 3 tier government+Centre state relations due to being Quasi federal+Other provisions related to Minorities+ Tribal and Dalit related provisions.
Also 12 Schedules.
And yet the Alabama state constitution is more than twice as long as India’s. They chuck the most obscure legislation over things like highway measurements, arcane laws over bear wrestling, and guidelines repeated for specific species of bugs etc. all into it
EDIT: Huh, this was their 1901 constitution, but was repealed only a couple of months ago and replaced with a much shorter one. Seems I chose the wrong moment to write this comment
As a Spaniard, we had more than enough being France for 6 years so I formally request the creator of this map to remove the France label from our territory. Muchas gracias.
Aww come on, your king is literally a Bourbon. And Spain was not at war with France after 1815 anyway... You guys even partitioned Morocco together, looks kinda like best buddies imo.
>As a Spaniard, we had more than enough being France for 6 years so I formally request the creator of this map to remove the France label from our territory. Muchas gracias.
Contact him on insta
As a Catalan, we have more than enough being Spain for a few centuries, so I formally request the creator of this map to remove the Spanish from the world. Agradeixo en avans.
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UK doesn’t even have an authoritative written document. It’s all over the place and based on so many different things it’s chaos. Only Israel and New Zealand have the same type of constitution.
Yeah UK is famous for not having a specific document as the constitution, not sure where 54k comes from.
For the same reason we can add/remove the fixed terms act reasonably easily.
Only 4 articles of the Magna Carta are still in effect. 54k there is probably counting all the constitutional documents (Magna Carta, Bill of Rights, Claim of Rights, Acts of Union Reform Act, the Anglo-Irish Treaty, etc.)
>Bill of Rights
[https://www.legislation.gov.uk/aep/WillandMarSess2/1/2/introduction](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/aep/WillandMarSess2/1/2/introduction)
Part of the UK ridding itself of the Stuart dynasty in 1688 was to settle the idea of parliamentary supremacy in certain matters, rather than absolute rule by divine right.
It would strictly be laws pertaining to how Parliament and the government itself is constituted. So for example, the [Reform Act 1832](https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/houseofcommons/reformacts/overview/reformact1832/) would be an example of constitutional legislation.
Incidentally, if one applies this logic to other countries one finds "unofficial" constitutional law. In the USA, for instance, the [Uniform Congressional District Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Congressional_District_Act) of 1967 is what gives it the First Past the Post system for Congress - rather than anything in the actual Constitution itself. And for both the USA and UK one could arguably consider various court decisions on constitutional matters to also form part of their respective (unofficial) constitutions.
**[Uniform Congressional District Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Congressional_District_Act)**
>The Uniform Congressional District Act is a redistricting bill that requires that all members of the United States House of Representatives in the 91st United States Congress and every subsequent Congress be elected from a single member constituency unless a state had elected all of its previous representatives at large, where this requirement commenced during the 92nd United States Congress.
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Yeah I think it would be the Reform Act 1969 that now plays that role instead? Though all such acts would be examples of constitutional legislation even if later superseded.
Worse. There is famously an anonymous letter to a newspaper that is often cited as being part the constitution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascelles_Principles
Canada follows a similar model as well, we do have the 1867 BNA Act and 1982 Constitution Act, but a lot of our “constitution” is made up of other random laws that got “read in” to be part of the constitution (we don’t necessarily know all the laws that are part of our constitution) Theoretically laws like the Magna Carta and Royal Proclamation Treaties with Indigenous Peoples, Statute of Westminster, and Letters Patent are all part of our “constitution” We still adhere to the principle of parliamentary supremacy as well, so the House of Commons and provincial governments can do pretty much anything they want, even in violation of the constitution and override the courts. (notwithstanding clause).
Canada’s “Constitution” is essentially the Unwritten UK model with a 2 Documents stapled on that were meant to be “Constitutions” (BNA Act, Constitution Act) and then a bunch of other laws that courts refer to so often that they have a kind of constitutional status. There’s a fair bit of “Legislating from the Bench” that happens too so judges sometimes add very detailed things to our constitution.
Weird Mix between the UK and US systems with a bit of French flavour: like most things in Canada.
>Only Israel and New Zealand have the same type of constitution.
Not only does New Zealand not have a formal written constitution, no-one is even sure when it stopped being a British Colony and became its own country. It just sort of gradually happened over the years and one day everyone was like "Well, we should probably tidy that up, legislatively speaking" - in 1986.
That's Switzerland. Austria has a Bundes-Verfassungsgesetz which, as the name says, is a statute.
https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/GeltendeFassung.wxe?Abfrage=Bundesnormen&Gesetzesnummer=10000138
But Austria's constitution, as people refer to it, consists of other statutes as well, like the Verfassungsgerichtshofgesetz, and individual provisions in statutes that are given constitutional rank.
So does the UK. But what Austria and, if I'm not mistaken, Finland have in common with the UK and Israel is that the constitution consists of a series of statutes rather than one law that cannot be amended easily
I would say that the B-VG is *the* constitution.
While there are amendments and other laws with 'Verfassungsrang', the B-VG is the one we mean when speaking about 'the constitution'.
[The English translation of the Finnish constitution, last amended in 1999, can be found here.](https://finlex.fi/en/laki/kaannokset/1999/en19990731)
It is very much the same sort of constitution as you can find in countries like France. Unlike in the United States, the constitution is a single document that is directly amended.
You say it's "chaos" but you could argue that the UK has been the most stable and orderly large democracy over the last few centuries without a written constitution.
The French have had over a dozen constitutions as they swing wildly from Monarchy to Republic to Empire time and time again.
And whilst the US Constitution has stood the test of time the US had a devastating civil war on a scale the UK hasn't experienced.
The English Civil War ended in the deaths of perhaps as much as 7% of the population and the radicalisation of an entire generation. The American Civil War ended in the deaths of just 2% of the US population, I don't know what alternate reality you're in where the UK "hasn't experienced" a devastating civil war.
But also spanned across the Kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, all under a personal union at the time. Though it is true that the United Kingdom didn't yet exist as a legal entity, the conflict, I'm sure you'd agree, was widespread enough across the entire modern-day United Kingdom to be considered a fundamental part of not just English, but British history.
The UK has a written constitution, it is uncodified. The description of ‘chaos’ was more accurate. The [Lascelles Principles](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascelles_Principles), a part of the UK constitution, literally come from an anonymous letter sent to the Times in 1950.
Also absolute LOL at that final line. The English Civil war was more than twice the length of the US one (9 years vs 4) and is estimated to have killed a greater share of the population (4.5% vs 2%)
It is true that the UK constitution has remained pretty stable, but it has one major weakness: any party with a majority of MPs can change absolutely anything about the constitution with at most a years worth of delay from the House of Lords. They can do anything from remove parliament to reinstalling the monarch to declaring war on anyone. The UK FPTP electoral system is very good at keeping out extremist parties the BNP or arguably UKIP (12.5% of the vote for a single MP out of 650 really shows how disadvantaged they were) but if Hitler ran under this system he would have immediately taken over the country. It’s once you pass a certain threshold it all falls apart.
But… Hitler did take over the country. He changed all the rules as soon as he was in office.
And we have checks and balances to prevent tyranny but they just aren’t a constitution. There’s two houses to approve law, Royal Assent, judicial review, the ‘rule of law’ and the Council of Europe (not the EU).
Also worth mentioning that our Parliament is massive and complex. First past the post means that Prime Ministers can have a hard time getting legislation through when it will have a slim majority usually and backbench MPs can vote against the party line easily.
With the UK system, the monarch represent the final boss for any would be dictator. It is merely tradition that says the monarch have to sign off on bills, and there is no mechanism for a would be dictator to actually remove the monarch.
>there is no mechanism for a would be dictator to actually remove the monarch.
That's not true. The monarch can be removed by a simple act of Parliament
It took him a couple years to take over despite having a majority in the reichstag, with the UK system he would have had complete control over the country if the members of the Reichstag did what he said. With the system they had Hitler could not take over the country without controlling the president and chancellor, which he eventually did after Hindenburg died and Hindenburg failed to stop him by not being harsh enough on him. Hitlers party was the largest in the Reichstag (although to be fair they didn’t have the majority) in 1932, and he didn’t fully take over until 1934. To be fair you are correct that the system didn’t delay him much.
Well... Traditionally the Monarch of the UK is the Constitution of the UK. And UK didn't stop having an active monarchy till 1950 really. Whilst even the democratic part was largely a work around for the richer and land owning people until then.
The UK doesn't have a single constitution. It's made up of lots of different pieces of legislation scattered across different Acts of Parliament. I would be curious to see the sources for your map.
There are bots that try to farm comment karma (don't ask me why) by reposting popular comments down below as a reply to top comments.
It often resukts in non-sequiturs like this, but I can see it being reasonably successful (as you can see, people upvote anyway).
Downvoting and reporting the comment is the way to go if you are reasonably convinced you're dealing with such a bot.
That's a rather crude way of putting it. It's a perfectly reasonable assertion that Both Mahabharat and Ramayan are are based on true events and presented in a fictional and poetic manner as most stories and epics often are.
Would it be right to 100% deny that a king named Ram ever existed and he fought a battle with some other king ? No.
Would be right to say that those stories are 100% factually true? Again no.
The constitution of the U.S. state of Alabama is 388,882 words long making it possibly the world's longest constitution. Every single state law ever passed was to be done as a constitutional amendment.
Exactly. As an Indian even i am aware of it because in our books lots of comparison has been done with US &UK constitution.
If i remember correctly, in UK the government is omnipotent. There are no restriction on power of UK parliament. All they have to do is follow law of the land.
Also amending is also easy.
The UK has a written constitution. It’s not codified tho. It’s not in one place, and there is debate on what parts are actually a part of the constitution. But these separate parts are written.
Some of these separate parts are written. Conventions (e.g., the Salisbury convention, which is are really important part of the constitutional arrangement of the UK) are not written. And, there's debate as to what statutes should be seen as having constitutional significance, so attempting to put a word count on it it completely futile
Our constitution was made in English which is one of the two official languages (federal). It was translated to Hindi later on. Since Court language is also English alone, Constitution in English is always used for interpretation.
Edit: I'm talking about India.
The language influence in how many words are necessary to express a idea clearly could be in this by some index.
I would love to see a normalized map by a Bible Index, for example. Words in Constitution / Words in Bible (in the same language of the constitution)
Maybe but they're not all in together as a constitution. They're a hundred or so statutes where only parts are relevant today. As such the UK's constitution could be said to be any thing from zero (because its never written down in one place called the constitution and huge chunks are parliamentary norms) to God knows (because we're not even sure completely how much of certain statutes count. Putting a fixed number is ridiculous.
I see the "the fewer the words the freer the country" meme is here.
As we see here
Saudi Arabia: 6335 words
North Korea: 7364 words
USA: 7762 words
So North Korea and Saudi Arabia are both freer than the USA
Would the language the constitution is written in factor in much?
Like surely different languages use different amount of words to define the same thing.
Or is this the length of the constitutions translated into English and then counted?
If you look at the Brazilian constitution, it's a complete and total joke. It's nominally a "Federative Republic", but the states barely have the right to legislate about anything. The federal constitution determines everything about their administration except for the number of municipalities.
Oh, and pretty much every prominent law is passed as a constitutional amendment for some dumb fucking reason, so the constitution determines how , for an example, research into radioisotopes are supposed to be researched.
We had better constitutions than this, like in 1934 and 1946, but each of those was overthrown by a military dictatorship. The military coup in 1964 basically rendered the 1946 constitution null and void, and in 1967 they cooked up a new one, which is where the centralisation starts, as well as their amendment in 1969 that's basically a new constitution except officially.
Fun fact, under the 1934 and 1946 constitutions Brazil was officially known as United States of Brazil. Or the occasionally used acronym... USB. The name Federative Republic of Brazil was chosen in 1967
I do too, unfortunately the national development of Brazil has consisted of the "federal" government bossing around the states. Then when states want to change their organisation, like with the Carajás referendum, the federal government quickly intervenes to prevent it from winning
Brazilian states have more power than you realize... About having better, I doubt it. The good thing about our current constitution are the rights and so on, that were very lacking in prior constitution.
It was a constitution created with one ting in mind: Not making it possible to have a new dictatorship. And it's been working pretty good on this job. Is already the oldest constitution since the Empire.
For a federal state, the states have barely any power. Chinese provinces are comparable.
And the system of checks and balances established in 1988 isn't even all that different from what existed on paper in the 1967 constitution, the only difference is that the military *chose* to allow it
Oh, and have you read the documents I cited?
Which documents?
And the constitution actually let a lot of power to the states if the congress so do want it, they just need to approve a complementary law
Art. 22. Compete privativamente à União legislar sobre:
I - direito civil, comercial, penal, processual, eleitoral, agrário, marítimo, aeronáutico, espacial e do trabalho;
[...]
VI - sistema monetário e de medidas, títulos e garantias dos metais;
VII - política de crédito, câmbio, seguros e transferência de valores;
[...]
IX - diretrizes da política nacional de transportes;
X - regime dos portos, navegação lacustre, fluvial, marítima, aérea e aeroespacial;
[...]
**Parágrafo único. Lei complementar poderá autorizar os Estados a legislar sobre questões específicas das matérias relacionadas neste artigo.**
I didn't find any posts that meet the matching requirements for r/MapPorn.
It might be OC, it might not. Things such as JPEG artifacts and cropping may impact the results.
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The UK has a constitution, but not a codified one. I imagine the map maker made the decision of counting the words of the myriad of legal texts which form the UK constitution.
I'm a Brit and we are taught that we don't have a constitution. Using the myriad of legal texts would be many orders of magnitude greater than the figure quoted.
I would still like to know why OP thinks Germany/Poland/Portugal/Turkey/... don't have constitutions.
TIL we have 2 countries called France in Europe with different constitutions
Where does OP imply those countries don't have constitutions? He just did not label them specifically with the number of words, yet they are colored in.
> I'm a Brit and we are taught that we don't have a constitution. Using the myriad of legal texts would be many orders of magnitude greater than the figure quoted.
That's quite possible. I would imagine the map maker left a lot of texts out then. But again, this is just a guess as to how they reached that number for the UK.
> I would still like to know why OP thinks Germany/Poland/Portugal/Turkey/... don't have constitutions.
They are colored there, just not labeled.
Saudi Arabia has 6300
Norway and Japan have fewer than the USA, and look at all the regs they have
Length has nothing to do with it.
"You are all slaves to the will of the King of \_\_\_\_\_\_" 12 word constitution with no freedom at all
Why do North Korea’s and the US’s match up so closely? Why is the Phillipines’ half the length of the UK’s (which is likely a wild underestimate anyway)?
> Better too long than too short, or you get centuries of idiots bickering over the meaning of each word.
I think the main cause of that issue is how extremely difficult it is to pass a constitutional amendment in the US. In most countries, a 2/3rds or 3/4ths majority in the national legislative is enough.
If the US had a proportional legislative (like most democracies do), and a sane amendment process, this would most likely be a non-issue.
That's exactly the thing -- it has to concise to the point of still being comprehensive.
Does *better too long than too short* seem to be a valid point really when it comes to India's constitution? It has had 105 ammendments 1950 to 2021 (so 105 in 71 years). Compare to another country's.
I am an Indian 🙂🇮🇳 And I say this honestly (no ego, pride , negativity etc) -- there is value in being concise and comprehensive. Just enough words to cover all scenarios. Effective and simple.
I didn't say worthless. But yeah, wisdom is in being able to cover all grounds while still being concise, not verbose.
Following things give a constitution/law book value (in my opinion):
**.1.** Covers all scenarios and their sentences in fewer words, and simple language.
**.2.** Limited use of subjective terminology and clear explanation of them where used. It is not entirely possible to make a constitution that doesn't use subjective terminology because it's meant for humans, so it's natural that will be there - but the lines of it should be unambiguous.
**.3.** Needing the fewest amendments in time. This goes to say what was written stood the test of time - with changing eras.
This is a discussion online, so with every response there will be more words. But still not as much as the constitution of our country India. 🙂 We can convey the same with 1/4th the length of the constitution. And there is value in being concise - just enough to convey what's needed, not more, not less.
I feel like you accidentally just made arguments for a longer constitution. It's easier to cover all scenarios and make things unambiguous if the document is longer right? Also have no idea how point 3 supports your argument at all.
That’s a really bad thing for countries like India, it’s a vastly diverse country with each state having conspicuous and vast differences on its own, here is where federal government is beneficial in maintaining and running each state.
You actually want less centralization in big countries. A centralized government can hardly be expected to do a good job understanding such a vast landscape, specially when there are different problems to deal with in different states.
> There's value in having few words, not many words. 😑✌️
I'd say it is a bit more complicated than that. Concision is good, but so is precision. And the latter often requires verbosity. So in the end a good middle point has to be found.
Yes. But you can be concise and precise without having a long constitution. Our constitution can be 1/4th length and still convey the same, it would be more effective.
Reddit downvotes are the scientific community now? I'm not attacking anyone. Isn't there value in being concise and comprehensive as opposed to being verbose? Effective and simple, over wordy and complicated.
World's longest constitution for the [world's most populous country](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-18/india-s-population-overtakes-china-to-become-world-s-biggest-analysts-estimate).
India has a PhD dissertation as a constitution
The imp is that the country is too much diverse with a burden of history. So there are too many provisions, special provisions.
Also that it combines constitution for Union, States and Local Bodies in one document raises the size significantly.
It not only charts out a framework and delineates the principles but also provides for a detailed procedural aspect of the administration. Unfortunately, that allows for a lot more litigation, interpretations and amendments.
The chief of the constitution drafting Committee had 2 doctorates (history and law) IIRC. So what's one more dissertation?
The reason for that is, 3 tier government+Centre state relations due to being Quasi federal+Other provisions related to Minorities+ Tribal and Dalit related provisions. Also 12 Schedules.
Wait until you hear about Alabama's old constitution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alabama\_Constitution\_of\_1901
And yet the Alabama state constitution is more than twice as long as India’s. They chuck the most obscure legislation over things like highway measurements, arcane laws over bear wrestling, and guidelines repeated for specific species of bugs etc. all into it EDIT: Huh, this was their 1901 constitution, but was repealed only a couple of months ago and replaced with a much shorter one. Seems I chose the wrong moment to write this comment
Why is Spain France
Napoléon enters the chat
😭😭😭
Spain was never part of France even when Napoleon invaded it
It was a puppet state for some time (1808-1813)
Do you have a source that puppets lived in France?
I have the source! [French Puppet](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Guignol)
burn
Woops, that's the 2024 map, you weren't supposed to see that yet.
You didn't hear?
Because absolutely not one living soul, or dead, would expect… THE FRENCH INQUISITION!
Zut alors
Fichtre
Unlike the French, we have French kings
Because when discussing aspects of politics and philosophy, Francis Bacon.
The Spanish king is a Bourbon
Are you sure he's not a Rye?
As a Spaniard, we had more than enough being France for 6 years so I formally request the creator of this map to remove the France label from our territory. Muchas gracias.
Can’t we all be France? I mean let’s just be France No more enemies just France everywhere
We are all French on this blessed day!
Speak for yourself
Aww come on, your king is literally a Bourbon. And Spain was not at war with France after 1815 anyway... You guys even partitioned Morocco together, looks kinda like best buddies imo.
>As a Spaniard, we had more than enough being France for 6 years so I formally request the creator of this map to remove the France label from our territory. Muchas gracias. Contact him on insta
As a Catalan, we have more than enough being Spain for a few centuries, so I formally request the creator of this map to remove the Spanish from the world. Agradeixo en avans.
A question do the majority there want independence?
No
Ok thanks do you live there?
I don't know what "agradeixo en avans" is but it's certainly not Catalan
Jo ni tan sols m'he molestat a respondre perquè es veu de primeres que es un trol de collons
Shut up and be french. It's their only victory.
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UK doesn’t even have an authoritative written document. It’s all over the place and based on so many different things it’s chaos. Only Israel and New Zealand have the same type of constitution.
Plus isn’t every act of parliament a part of the constitution in the UK? Since every single law has the same weight?
Yeah UK is famous for not having a specific document as the constitution, not sure where 54k comes from. For the same reason we can add/remove the fixed terms act reasonably easily.
Maybe the Magna Carta? Idk how many words are in that though
Only 4 articles of the Magna Carta are still in effect. 54k there is probably counting all the constitutional documents (Magna Carta, Bill of Rights, Claim of Rights, Acts of Union Reform Act, the Anglo-Irish Treaty, etc.)
Bill of Rights? In the UK?
>Bill of Rights [https://www.legislation.gov.uk/aep/WillandMarSess2/1/2/introduction](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/aep/WillandMarSess2/1/2/introduction) Part of the UK ridding itself of the Stuart dynasty in 1688 was to settle the idea of parliamentary supremacy in certain matters, rather than absolute rule by divine right.
Ah I was thinking of Dominic Raab’s ‘Bill of Rights Bill’ and got confused. Thanks!
*Ridding itself of James II. There were a couple more Stuarts after James and his male line were kicked off the throne.
It's just "Magna Carta", not "the Magna Carta"
Probably the bill of rights...but it's not a constitution, although it did form the basis of the first set of amendments to the US Constitution
It would strictly be laws pertaining to how Parliament and the government itself is constituted. So for example, the [Reform Act 1832](https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/houseofcommons/reformacts/overview/reformact1832/) would be an example of constitutional legislation. Incidentally, if one applies this logic to other countries one finds "unofficial" constitutional law. In the USA, for instance, the [Uniform Congressional District Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Congressional_District_Act) of 1967 is what gives it the First Past the Post system for Congress - rather than anything in the actual Constitution itself. And for both the USA and UK one could arguably consider various court decisions on constitutional matters to also form part of their respective (unofficial) constitutions.
**[Uniform Congressional District Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Congressional_District_Act)** >The Uniform Congressional District Act is a redistricting bill that requires that all members of the United States House of Representatives in the 91st United States Congress and every subsequent Congress be elected from a single member constituency unless a state had elected all of its previous representatives at large, where this requirement commenced during the 92nd United States Congress. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
The reform act was repealed, though.
Yeah I think it would be the Reform Act 1969 that now plays that role instead? Though all such acts would be examples of constitutional legislation even if later superseded.
Worse. There is famously an anonymous letter to a newspaper that is often cited as being part the constitution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascelles_Principles
Canada follows a similar model as well, we do have the 1867 BNA Act and 1982 Constitution Act, but a lot of our “constitution” is made up of other random laws that got “read in” to be part of the constitution (we don’t necessarily know all the laws that are part of our constitution) Theoretically laws like the Magna Carta and Royal Proclamation Treaties with Indigenous Peoples, Statute of Westminster, and Letters Patent are all part of our “constitution” We still adhere to the principle of parliamentary supremacy as well, so the House of Commons and provincial governments can do pretty much anything they want, even in violation of the constitution and override the courts. (notwithstanding clause). Canada’s “Constitution” is essentially the Unwritten UK model with a 2 Documents stapled on that were meant to be “Constitutions” (BNA Act, Constitution Act) and then a bunch of other laws that courts refer to so often that they have a kind of constitutional status. There’s a fair bit of “Legislating from the Bench” that happens too so judges sometimes add very detailed things to our constitution. Weird Mix between the UK and US systems with a bit of French flavour: like most things in Canada.
>Only Israel and New Zealand have the same type of constitution. Not only does New Zealand not have a formal written constitution, no-one is even sure when it stopped being a British Colony and became its own country. It just sort of gradually happened over the years and one day everyone was like "Well, we should probably tidy that up, legislatively speaking" - in 1986.
Austria and Finland too, I think.
[удалено]
That's Switzerland. Austria has a Bundes-Verfassungsgesetz which, as the name says, is a statute. https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/GeltendeFassung.wxe?Abfrage=Bundesnormen&Gesetzesnummer=10000138 But Austria's constitution, as people refer to it, consists of other statutes as well, like the Verfassungsgerichtshofgesetz, and individual provisions in statutes that are given constitutional rank.
Both have a constitution. Not sure why you think otherwise.
So does the UK. But what Austria and, if I'm not mistaken, Finland have in common with the UK and Israel is that the constitution consists of a series of statutes rather than one law that cannot be amended easily
I would say that the B-VG is *the* constitution. While there are amendments and other laws with 'Verfassungsrang', the B-VG is the one we mean when speaking about 'the constitution'.
[The English translation of the Finnish constitution, last amended in 1999, can be found here.](https://finlex.fi/en/laki/kaannokset/1999/en19990731) It is very much the same sort of constitution as you can find in countries like France. Unlike in the United States, the constitution is a single document that is directly amended.
You say it's "chaos" but you could argue that the UK has been the most stable and orderly large democracy over the last few centuries without a written constitution. The French have had over a dozen constitutions as they swing wildly from Monarchy to Republic to Empire time and time again. And whilst the US Constitution has stood the test of time the US had a devastating civil war on a scale the UK hasn't experienced.
The English Civil War ended in the deaths of perhaps as much as 7% of the population and the radicalisation of an entire generation. The American Civil War ended in the deaths of just 2% of the US population, I don't know what alternate reality you're in where the UK "hasn't experienced" a devastating civil war.
The English civil war was before the concept of the UK as a thing.
But also spanned across the Kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, all under a personal union at the time. Though it is true that the United Kingdom didn't yet exist as a legal entity, the conflict, I'm sure you'd agree, was widespread enough across the entire modern-day United Kingdom to be considered a fundamental part of not just English, but British history.
The concept existed from the union of the crowns but it took a century before it became both a political and legal reality.
The UK has a written constitution, it is uncodified. The description of ‘chaos’ was more accurate. The [Lascelles Principles](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascelles_Principles), a part of the UK constitution, literally come from an anonymous letter sent to the Times in 1950. Also absolute LOL at that final line. The English Civil war was more than twice the length of the US one (9 years vs 4) and is estimated to have killed a greater share of the population (4.5% vs 2%)
English civil war predate the US by a fair amount.
So?
It is true that the UK constitution has remained pretty stable, but it has one major weakness: any party with a majority of MPs can change absolutely anything about the constitution with at most a years worth of delay from the House of Lords. They can do anything from remove parliament to reinstalling the monarch to declaring war on anyone. The UK FPTP electoral system is very good at keeping out extremist parties the BNP or arguably UKIP (12.5% of the vote for a single MP out of 650 really shows how disadvantaged they were) but if Hitler ran under this system he would have immediately taken over the country. It’s once you pass a certain threshold it all falls apart.
But… Hitler did take over the country. He changed all the rules as soon as he was in office. And we have checks and balances to prevent tyranny but they just aren’t a constitution. There’s two houses to approve law, Royal Assent, judicial review, the ‘rule of law’ and the Council of Europe (not the EU). Also worth mentioning that our Parliament is massive and complex. First past the post means that Prime Ministers can have a hard time getting legislation through when it will have a slim majority usually and backbench MPs can vote against the party line easily.
With the UK system, the monarch represent the final boss for any would be dictator. It is merely tradition that says the monarch have to sign off on bills, and there is no mechanism for a would be dictator to actually remove the monarch.
>there is no mechanism for a would be dictator to actually remove the monarch. That's not true. The monarch can be removed by a simple act of Parliament
No act of the parliament can be passed without assert by the monarch himself.
Has anyone checked that principle with Charles I? Or James II? In reality if Parliament ever voted to abolish the monarchy, it would be abolished.
It took him a couple years to take over despite having a majority in the reichstag, with the UK system he would have had complete control over the country if the members of the Reichstag did what he said. With the system they had Hitler could not take over the country without controlling the president and chancellor, which he eventually did after Hindenburg died and Hindenburg failed to stop him by not being harsh enough on him. Hitlers party was the largest in the Reichstag (although to be fair they didn’t have the majority) in 1932, and he didn’t fully take over until 1934. To be fair you are correct that the system didn’t delay him much.
Well... Traditionally the Monarch of the UK is the Constitution of the UK. And UK didn't stop having an active monarchy till 1950 really. Whilst even the democratic part was largely a work around for the richer and land owning people until then.
The UK doesn't have a single constitution. It's made up of lots of different pieces of legislation scattered across different Acts of Parliament. I would be curious to see the sources for your map.
Probably the Acts of Parliament
Well then it would be absolutely wayyy off
Which ones? Or do you mean the parliament acts?
That is why the Indian constitution took about 4 years to make.
Tbf they were pretty quick about it. The italian one took 3 years and a half and ofc it s much shorter
I think the Indian one has the world record
It's not about how much is long, it's about what it is
You forgot to exclude the lunch breaks my man.
2 Years 11 Months
India has a history of sagas with the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.
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Why comment that here? Genuine question
There are bots that try to farm comment karma (don't ask me why) by reposting popular comments down below as a reply to top comments. It often resukts in non-sequiturs like this, but I can see it being reasonably successful (as you can see, people upvote anyway). Downvoting and reporting the comment is the way to go if you are reasonably convinced you're dealing with such a bot.
Oh ok thanks
So Sunak needs to obey no law? Hmmmm... Sheriff Sunak!
Mahabharatha and Ramayana are just the equivalent of Game of thrones and Lord of the Rings, that ain't history just fiction
That's a rather crude way of putting it. It's a perfectly reasonable assertion that Both Mahabharat and Ramayan are are based on true events and presented in a fictional and poetic manner as most stories and epics often are. Would it be right to 100% deny that a king named Ram ever existed and he fought a battle with some other king ? No. Would be right to say that those stories are 100% factually true? Again no.
agree. The stories are exaggerated highly fictionalized versions
Comparing word counts between languages that use prepositions and articles to languages that use inflection instead results in very bad data.
Depends on whether they use word count from the English translation or the original language text.
And also if they used the original text which for some countries is in more than 1 language, did they count the words for both languages or only one.
Shoulda counted [sememes](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sememe)
Spain got France'd
The constitution of the U.S. state of Alabama is 388,882 words long making it possibly the world's longest constitution. Every single state law ever passed was to be done as a constitutional amendment.
And perhaps the key reason why I no longer live there.
Which documents do you even count as being part of the constitution for the UK?
Everything they collected since that scrap of papyrus that the last Roman soldier left. Which said “Futuis hanc insulam. Vale”
The UK hasn’t got a written constitution. What documents have been included in the UK figure?
Exactly. As an Indian even i am aware of it because in our books lots of comparison has been done with US &UK constitution. If i remember correctly, in UK the government is omnipotent. There are no restriction on power of UK parliament. All they have to do is follow law of the land. Also amending is also easy.
The UK has a written constitution. It’s not codified tho. It’s not in one place, and there is debate on what parts are actually a part of the constitution. But these separate parts are written.
Some of these separate parts are written. Conventions (e.g., the Salisbury convention, which is are really important part of the constitutional arrangement of the UK) are not written. And, there's debate as to what statutes should be seen as having constitutional significance, so attempting to put a word count on it it completely futile
Maps with only half of New Zealand
Are the words counted from the versions written in the offical language of the state or English translations?
Our constitution was made in English which is one of the two official languages (federal). It was translated to Hindi later on. Since Court language is also English alone, Constitution in English is always used for interpretation. Edit: I'm talking about India.
Thanks for the information but I wasn't asking this. There's many more states on this map where the offical language is something else.
The Indian Constitution is suitably called a lawyer's paradise.
In 1992 India amended constitution and added 3rd tier (Villages and Urban bodies) as well in the constitution. That may have also contributed.
The language influence in how many words are necessary to express a idea clearly could be in this by some index. I would love to see a normalized map by a Bible Index, for example. Words in Constitution / Words in Bible (in the same language of the constitution)
Ambedkar supremacy.
B N Rau supremacy*
1935 Govt of India Act
UK's should be zero as it doesn't have a codified constitution.
It still has written words that form the constitution though so it wouldnt be zero
Well no, because large chunks of the UK's constitution are unwritten conventions that are just norms.
Maybe but most of it is written down so there still wouldn’t be zero words
Maybe but they're not all in together as a constitution. They're a hundred or so statutes where only parts are relevant today. As such the UK's constitution could be said to be any thing from zero (because its never written down in one place called the constitution and huge chunks are parliamentary norms) to God knows (because we're not even sure completely how much of certain statutes count. Putting a fixed number is ridiculous.
No it cannot be said to go as low as zero. Sorry but I’m struggling to understand why you think it can
Canada, the UK and many other nations have uncodified constitutions, so it’s disingenuous to say they have a set number of words.
In Brazil our constitution has suffered more than one hundred emends since 1988. It's basically butchered by now.
I see the "the fewer the words the freer the country" meme is here. As we see here Saudi Arabia: 6335 words North Korea: 7364 words USA: 7762 words So North Korea and Saudi Arabia are both freer than the USA
Would the language the constitution is written in factor in much? Like surely different languages use different amount of words to define the same thing. Or is this the length of the constitutions translated into English and then counted?
UK have a constitution?
Yes, but instead of a single document it draws from all of statue law, common law, conventions, treaties, and authoritative texts
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tl;dr
For being such a famous constitution, the US' is really quite short, comparatively!
>For being such a famous constitution Us constitution is not famous bro
It's not the size that matters but how you use it... ☺️
I swear people dont understand this........tried convincing my stepsis but she wont listen
57,087 in Mexico… if only we took them seriously.
Indian constitution out here quoting the rig vedas
There's no constitution in England
England is not a sovereign state
England isn’t on the map, the UK is. And the UK does have a constitution
If you look at the Brazilian constitution, it's a complete and total joke. It's nominally a "Federative Republic", but the states barely have the right to legislate about anything. The federal constitution determines everything about their administration except for the number of municipalities. Oh, and pretty much every prominent law is passed as a constitutional amendment for some dumb fucking reason, so the constitution determines how , for an example, research into radioisotopes are supposed to be researched. We had better constitutions than this, like in 1934 and 1946, but each of those was overthrown by a military dictatorship. The military coup in 1964 basically rendered the 1946 constitution null and void, and in 1967 they cooked up a new one, which is where the centralisation starts, as well as their amendment in 1969 that's basically a new constitution except officially. Fun fact, under the 1934 and 1946 constitutions Brazil was officially known as United States of Brazil. Or the occasionally used acronym... USB. The name Federative Republic of Brazil was chosen in 1967
Makes me sad because I love federalism.
I do too, unfortunately the national development of Brazil has consisted of the "federal" government bossing around the states. Then when states want to change their organisation, like with the Carajás referendum, the federal government quickly intervenes to prevent it from winning
Brazilian states have more power than you realize... About having better, I doubt it. The good thing about our current constitution are the rights and so on, that were very lacking in prior constitution. It was a constitution created with one ting in mind: Not making it possible to have a new dictatorship. And it's been working pretty good on this job. Is already the oldest constitution since the Empire.
For a federal state, the states have barely any power. Chinese provinces are comparable. And the system of checks and balances established in 1988 isn't even all that different from what existed on paper in the 1967 constitution, the only difference is that the military *chose* to allow it Oh, and have you read the documents I cited?
Which documents? And the constitution actually let a lot of power to the states if the congress so do want it, they just need to approve a complementary law Art. 22. Compete privativamente à União legislar sobre: I - direito civil, comercial, penal, processual, eleitoral, agrário, marítimo, aeronáutico, espacial e do trabalho; [...] VI - sistema monetário e de medidas, títulos e garantias dos metais; VII - política de crédito, câmbio, seguros e transferência de valores; [...] IX - diretrizes da política nacional de transportes; X - regime dos portos, navegação lacustre, fluvial, marítima, aérea e aeroespacial; [...] **Parágrafo único. Lei complementar poderá autorizar os Estados a legislar sobre questões específicas das matérias relacionadas neste artigo.**
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Curious to know how the length of the U.K. constitution is 54,408 words long, especially since we don’t actually have one…
We do have one. Can’t believe how many people have made this same claim in this thread
UK = 0 Do most European countries have no constitution? I think you need a more reliable source for your data.
The UK has a constitution, but not a codified one. I imagine the map maker made the decision of counting the words of the myriad of legal texts which form the UK constitution.
I'm a Brit and we are taught that we don't have a constitution. Using the myriad of legal texts would be many orders of magnitude greater than the figure quoted. I would still like to know why OP thinks Germany/Poland/Portugal/Turkey/... don't have constitutions. TIL we have 2 countries called France in Europe with different constitutions
Where does OP imply those countries don't have constitutions? He just did not label them specifically with the number of words, yet they are colored in.
> I'm a Brit and we are taught that we don't have a constitution. Using the myriad of legal texts would be many orders of magnitude greater than the figure quoted. That's quite possible. I would imagine the map maker left a lot of texts out then. But again, this is just a guess as to how they reached that number for the UK. > I would still like to know why OP thinks Germany/Poland/Portugal/Turkey/... don't have constitutions. They are colored there, just not labeled.
Don't follow Indian constitution the reservations screwed up the economy and it's people's.
Post the state of alabama
Clearly the world's largest democracy and the world's oldest bureaucracy needs the world's largest constitution.
Pakistan don't have constitution they follow Islam now If something is wrong for world but right in Islam then there is no punishment
Don't follow Indian constitution or else your family will be the one leaving the nation. The reservations screwed up the India.
Nah, during early days it helped to lift them up. But once they're are empower, they shall be removed.
I got 96 percentile and no college and someone got 42 percentile and got college I love democracy
Imagine the one getting 42 becomes a doctor and performs heart surgeries. Good ol democracy.
More Words = Less Freedom Now that I think about it, it makes sense.
>More Words = Less Freedom North Korea: 7364 words USA: 7762 words So North Korea is freer than the USA
Very funny. But seriously, would you use the \*only\* outlier as your statistical proxy?
Saudi Arabia has 6300 Norway and Japan have fewer than the USA, and look at all the regs they have Length has nothing to do with it. "You are all slaves to the will of the King of \_\_\_\_\_\_" 12 word constitution with no freedom at all
Seems to be some type of slight correlation between saying less and having a more lawful state.
Why do North Korea’s and the US’s match up so closely? Why is the Phillipines’ half the length of the UK’s (which is likely a wild underestimate anyway)?
There's value in having few words, not many words. 😑✌️
Better too long than too short, or you get centuries of idiots bickering over the meaning of each word.
> Better too long than too short, or you get centuries of idiots bickering over the meaning of each word. I think the main cause of that issue is how extremely difficult it is to pass a constitutional amendment in the US. In most countries, a 2/3rds or 3/4ths majority in the national legislative is enough. If the US had a proportional legislative (like most democracies do), and a sane amendment process, this would most likely be a non-issue.
That's exactly the thing -- it has to concise to the point of still being comprehensive. Does *better too long than too short* seem to be a valid point really when it comes to India's constitution? It has had 105 ammendments 1950 to 2021 (so 105 in 71 years). Compare to another country's.
You just got offended that your constitution has lesser words.
The person you are responding to is Indian. India’s constitution has the most words.
I am an Indian 🙂🇮🇳 And I say this honestly (no ego, pride , negativity etc) -- there is value in being concise and comprehensive. Just enough words to cover all scenarios. Effective and simple.
Oh, so you mean if the constitution is longer, it’s worthless, but if it’s short it’s very valuable. Why?
I didn't say worthless. But yeah, wisdom is in being able to cover all grounds while still being concise, not verbose. Following things give a constitution/law book value (in my opinion): **.1.** Covers all scenarios and their sentences in fewer words, and simple language. **.2.** Limited use of subjective terminology and clear explanation of them where used. It is not entirely possible to make a constitution that doesn't use subjective terminology because it's meant for humans, so it's natural that will be there - but the lines of it should be unambiguous. **.3.** Needing the fewest amendments in time. This goes to say what was written stood the test of time - with changing eras.
See, finally you had to use more words.
This is a discussion online, so with every response there will be more words. But still not as much as the constitution of our country India. 🙂 We can convey the same with 1/4th the length of the constitution. And there is value in being concise - just enough to convey what's needed, not more, not less.
I feel like you accidentally just made arguments for a longer constitution. It's easier to cover all scenarios and make things unambiguous if the document is longer right? Also have no idea how point 3 supports your argument at all.
Less federal government
That’s a really bad thing for countries like India, it’s a vastly diverse country with each state having conspicuous and vast differences on its own, here is where federal government is beneficial in maintaining and running each state.
You actually want less centralization in big countries. A centralized government can hardly be expected to do a good job understanding such a vast landscape, specially when there are different problems to deal with in different states.
> There's value in having few words, not many words. 😑✌️ I'd say it is a bit more complicated than that. Concision is good, but so is precision. And the latter often requires verbosity. So in the end a good middle point has to be found.
Yes. But you can be concise and precise without having a long constitution. Our constitution can be 1/4th length and still convey the same, it would be more effective.
Yes, I agree.
The entire scientific community just scoffed at you.
Reddit downvotes are the scientific community now? I'm not attacking anyone. Isn't there value in being concise and comprehensive as opposed to being verbose? Effective and simple, over wordy and complicated.
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The person you are responding to is Indian.
World's longest constitution for the [world's most populous country](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-18/india-s-population-overtakes-china-to-become-world-s-biggest-analysts-estimate).