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The term comes from Latin constitutio, which referred to any important law, usually issued by the emperor, and was widely used in canon law to indicate certain relevant decisions, mainly of the pope.
Particular kinds of organisations that often use the concept of Constitution include:
An organisation may be given specific powers on the condition that it abides by this constitution or charter limitation. The Latin term ultra vires describes activities that fall outside an organisation's or parliamentary body's constitutional activities. For example, a students' union may be prohibited from engaging in activities not concerning students as students, if the students' union becomes involved in nonstudent activities these activities are considered ultra vires of the students' union's charter, or a bank that tries to act as a real estate agent. An example from the constitutional law of nation-states would be a provincial government in a federal state which may not have authority over banking under the federal constitution, so any laws the provincial parliaments pass regarding banking will be considered void or ultra vires of that parliament's constitutional authority.
Countries that adopt constitutions usually do so by a process of ratification.
Most commonly, the term constitution is used to refer to the set of rules that govern political bodies. These rules may or may not be summarized in a single document. A constitution contained in a single document is called a codified constitution. A constitution not contained in a single document, that has several sources is called an uncodified constitution.
Possibly the most common usage of 'constitution' is to describe a single, written, fundamental law that defines how a nation or a subdivision is governed, legislation is passed, power and authority are distributed, and how they are limited. It is thus the most basic law of an area from which all the other laws and rules are hierarchically derived; in some areas it is in fact called " Basic Law".
Having a codified constitution gives the advantage of a coherent and easily understood body of rules. In democratic systems, the constitution is considered a fundamental social contractSocial contract is a phrase used in philosophy, political science, and sociology to denote a real or hypothetical agreement within a state regarding the rights and responsibilities of the state and its citizens, or more generally a similar concord between among citizens (following Rousseau's writingsJean Jacques Rousseau ( June 28, 1712 July 2, 1778) was a Swiss-French philosopher, writer, political theorist, and self-taught composer. Biography of Rousseau Rousseau was born in Geneva, Switzerland, and died in Ermenonville (28 miles northeast of Paris), where government receives its powers from the people, not the monarchThis article treats the generic title monarch . For the origins of the word king and its English use, see Germanic king. For other meanings of the word, see Monarch (disambiguation A monarch is a type of ruler or head of state. The word derives from Greek or a parliamentAlternative meanings: Parliamentary system, Parliament (band), Parliament (cigarette). A parliament is a legislative body, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system derived from that of the United Kingdom., and is bound by an express set of human rightsHuman rights natural rights are rights which some hold to be "inalienable" and belonging to all humans, according to natural law. Such rights are believed, by proponents, to be necessary for freedom and the maintenance of a " reasonable" quality of life.. The constitution is thus considered a statute superior to "ordinary" statutes, which it can overrule, and is usually protected against constitutional amendmentA constitutional amendment is an alteration to the constitution of a nation or a state. In jurisdictions with 'entrenched' constitutions this requires a special procedure different from that used for enacting ordinary laws. Flexible constitutions A flexibs and by special courts (see below). The United States ConstitutionLaw for the United States of America The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America and is the oldest written national constitution still in force. It was completed on September 17, 1787, with its adoption by the of 1787 (ratified 1789), heavily influenced by the writings of Polybius, Locke, Montesquieu, and others, is often considered the oldest codified constitution, and in any case remains the oldest such document still in effect. Other codified constitutions followed in Europe shortly thereafter, including the May Constitution of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1791 and the French constitution of 1792 (although neither remains in effect).
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