Principles and values

As prosaic and practical as a written constitution might be, it is still as much a moral document as a legal one. As well as being a charter of self-government, a constitution is a covenantal statement of identity, purpose and values. It proclaims the highest aspirations and deepest sentiments of the community, and affirms the common things that unite us as a res publica despite our many differences of party, ideology or interest. The constitution reflects, in the words of Hassen Ebrahim, ‘the soul of a nation’.

Most Westminster Model constitutions are somewhat reticent about expressing these covenantal features. They maintain what Hannah Lerner describes as a ‘liberal-procedural’ constitutional order based upon democratic procedures, fundamental rights and guarantees to minorities. They have little rhetorical or emotive content and do not make detailed commitments to any particular policy outcomes. Nevertheless, even the most prosaic liberal-procedural constitutions articulate some shared values, even if – in the absence of agreement about ultimate ends – these are ‘thin’ values, limited to a commitment to democratic process, to an open and pluralistic society, to basic universal human rights. These commitments may be implicit in the institutional structure; in the rules for the delimitation of constituencies, the constitution signals the value of equal representation; in the composition of the Public Service Commission, it signals the value of a professional and non-partisan bureaucracy; in the rules for the appointment and tenure of judges, it signals the value attached to the rule of law.

Covenantal commitments can also be explicit. Many Westminster Model constitutions declare the country to be a democracy. This is usually dealt with either in the preamble or in the first section or article of the Constitution. For example, the Constitution of Antigua & Barbuda opens with the words, ‘Antigua and Barbuda shall be a unitary sovereign democratic State’ (Section 1). The Bahamas (Section 1) declares itself to be ‘a sovereign democratic State’. Belize (Section 1) ‘shall be a sovereign democratic State of Central America in the Caribbean region’. The Solomon Islands (Section 1), likewise ‘shall be a sovereign democratic State’.