- What is constitutional law?
- Origin and history of constitutional law
- Importance of constitutional law
- Branches of constitutional law
- Examples of constitutional law
We explain what constitutional law is and why it is important. Origin, branches and examples of constitutional law.
What is constitutional law?
Constitutional Law or Political Law is a branch of the Public Law dedicated to the study of the fundamental precepts (principles, concepts and laws) that determine the existence and operation of a Condition national, normally established in the content of a National Constitution or Magna Carta.
Constitutional Law is also interested in what refers to the possible forms of the State and also in government, and above all in the regulation of public powers, the links that they establish with citizenship and the fundamental rights granted to individuals by the legal framework of a State.
In conclusion, it has as objective maintenance of the Rule of law and the fundamental laws of human being. To do this, he generally proposes the division and autonomy of the Public Powers, which fulfill functions of reciprocal limitation and surveillance, as well as the national sovereignty of the national States, which give their respective texts the last word in legal matters, and not to the interests of other nations more powerful.
Since the National Constitution of a country contains the legal norms that regulate public life, constitutional law normally aspires to comply with the provisions of this document. For this, it has different judicial bodies, responsible for the interpretation and application of constitutional laws, such as certain rooms of the Supreme Courts of Justice (called Constitutional Chambers).
Origin and history of constitutional law
The existence of Constitutional Law as a discipline Autonomous juridical could not exist, as is evident, before the modern constitutions appeared, as common legal agreements to govern the life of a nation-state. Therefore, its birth generally coincides with that of the 18th century British Constitution, widely studied by Baron de Montesquieu, one of the most important writers and jurists of the Illustration French
This is not to say that there was no historical background. In classical antiquity there were the fundamental laws of Ancient Greece, studied by philosophers of the stature of Aristotle and Plato, who distinguished them from other laws in their treatises. Likewise, in times of the Roman Empire, the Constitutio Romana in the year 824 between King Lothair I of Italy, co-emperor together with his father Louis the Pious since 817, and Pope Eugene II, stabilizing the power struggle between the Empire and the Papacy.
Importance of constitutional law
Constitutional Law is extremely important, since it establishes a limit for the governments, restricting the powers available to the political power and forcing it to conform to the legal regulations written in the Magna Carta. No transitory power, no matter how majority, should be able to contravene the Constitution itself, and in this the Constitutional Law plays a key role.
Therefore, this branch of the right guarantees the rights of the people, defending their interests from the will of the governmental power, establishing the requisites and indispensable control mechanisms to be able to modify any content of the Magna Carta.
Branches of constitutional law
According to its study procedures, Constitutional Law can be classified into four types or branches:
- Classic Constitutional Law. It focuses on the theoretical debate of the Magna Carta, using the positive method.
- Comparative Constitutional Law. Make a comparison of the different possible constitutional texts and their modes of application, highlighting differences, similarities and contrasts.
- General Constitutional Law. He cares about the ideology and concepts of the thought legal framework around the Constitution, that is, its abstract matter.
- National Constitutional Law. It deals with the historical perspective: the specific legal cases of the constitutional history of a nation or of all nations.
Examples of constitutional law
Any national Constitution is a clear example of the interests of Constitutional Law. So are the debates in the Constitutional Chambers of the Supreme Courts of Justice, which determine whether an action, a decision or a measure taken by a public Power anyone respects or perhaps violates the provisions of the Magna Carta.
In fact, when some law or set of explicit laws in the Constitution are not clear or lend themselves to the need for some interpretation, it is the instances of Constitutional Law that are in charge of doing so.