The Procedure of Constitutional Amendment – Comparative Reviews of European Practices

Abstract

Constitutional changes in a state with written constitution are carried out on the basis of a rule that has been set out by the constitution itself. In practice, many authors refers to articles that define the way of changing the constitution as "rules that define rules" (See for more Tracy Di Fillippo, How to Make Objections to Discovery under the Amended Rules, 25 Pretrial Prac. & Discovery 1, 2016.) Depending on the content of these rules, two sets of constitutions are generally formulated in the theory of constitutional right. The first are the flexible constitutions, which are amended in a simpler procedure, with a simple majority and in a shorter period of time. While in the second category there are the so-called rigid constitutions. Rigid are called the constitutions that have established a more extended or complicated procedure of amendment, with a qualified majority (more than just a simple majority) and a longer period of time.However, the procedure and the number of members of parliament differ. The main goal of this paper is to analyze those differencies, in oredr to find that how the procedure can affect on the constitutionality of the constittuion amendments. Is the rigid procedure a key for constitutional amendments or not? This is another question that is going to be analyzed by comparing different procedures of constitutional amendments in different countries.

Constitutional Amendments: Comparative (Re)view in Contemporary Constitutionalism

“…From a purely methodological perspective, it leverages different scientific methods of analysis (data analysis, legal comparison) and empirical approaches (qualitative case studies). Regardless of the generally applied scientific research methods (analysis, analogy, generalization, synthesis, and prognosis) in this article, we use other specific methods (data analysis, comparative, and statistical) to emphasize the real impact of the constitutional amendment on the development of constitutionalism and its core principles such as the rule of law and democracy (Balaj, 2018). All these methods help us to describe the precondition, mechanism, procedure, and outcomes of constitutional amending thematically, chronologically, and across Europe in countries compared.…”