What Is a Constitution?
The fundamental purpose of constitutions — what they do, why they exist, and how they differ from ordinary law.
The Operating System of a State
A constitution is the foundational legal document that establishes a state's political institutions, distributes power among them, and defines the relationship between the government and its citizens. It is, in a sense, the operating system on which everything else runs. Ordinary laws are written within the framework the constitution creates; they cannot violate it without being struck down.
But a constitution is more than a legal document. It is a statement of values — what a society considers fundamental enough to place beyond the reach of ordinary politics. When the US Constitution protects free speech, it is saying that this right is so important that no temporary majority should be able to take it away. When South Africa's Constitution guarantees housing, healthcare, and education, it is making a different set of value commitments. Constitutional design is, at its core, a society's most consequential argument about what matters.