Since 1997, the UK constitution has undergone a transformation. This has since become a rolling process which shows little sign of abating. However, some of this constitutional change has been criticised for being rushed, piecemeal and with little consideration of the broader constitution. Yet, despite these criticisms, the underlying methodology of constitutional change has not been discussed in any great detail. This thesis, focusing on formal constitutional change, argues that the methodology to deliver that change should be enhanced to address these concerns. After establishing the limits of formal constitutional change, this thesis then considers how constitutional issues are approached within government and suggests that a Department of Legal Affairs would improve the preparation of proposed changes before being presented to Parliament. The politics of constitutional change are then analysed, with a particular focus on the process of coalition negotiations, which has become a new part of the methodology. The parliamentary process is considered by analysing the parliamentary passage of what became the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 and the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006. Recent changes to parliamentary procedure have allowed Parliament to scrutinise constitutional legislation more effectively, although there are still areas for significant improvement, particularly during the Committee Stage in the House of Commons. The thesis then considers the role of referendums and establishes when a referendum is required either as a matter of law or convention. The thesis then shows how procedural innovations such as the constitutional conventions in Australia and Ireland or the citizens’ assemblies in British Columbia and Ontario could be used in the UK. Also, as any recommendations of a constitutional convention or a citizens’ assembly are usually put to the rest of the electorate at a referendum, the links between a convention or assembly and the referendum process are discussed. Taken together, these enhancements to discrete aspects of the methodology of constitutional change should ensure that changes are more considered and allow for a more a stable constitutional settlement.

The Russian and Ukrainian constitutions—like those in many other post-Soviet states—have concentrated political power in exclusive “super” presidencies. However, the concentration of power has persisted in only one of the two cases. Russian presidential authority was resilient in the face of attempts to increase legislative strength in the 1990s, even when severe economic and political crises undermined the presidency of Boris Yeltsin. In contrast, Ukrainian presidential power fluctuated over time, with “Orange Revolution” constitutional reforms shifting power to the parliament in 2004 and their annulment returning power to the president in 2010. What explains the different trajectories of Russia’s and Ukraine’s presidential systems? Using process-tracing to parse out the actions of elites during the 1990s and 2000s in combination with analyses of the electoral foundations of elite competition in the two cases, this dissertation develops an argument about the origins of super-presidential systems and the prospects for constitutional change in such systems. Concentrated executive power in Russia and Ukraine: (1) depended on elites’ preferences for more or less concentrated political authority; (2) these preferences depended on how elites perceived their political prospects for capturing and holding presidential power; (3) elites’ perceptions of their prospects for gaining and holding presidential power were conditioned by the relative balance of power between major political forces; and (4) this balance of power was very vulnerable to pressure from social forces. It was this final factor that distinguished the Ukrainian and Russian cases. Ukraine had more balanced political competition because of its coherent ethno-linguistic cleavage, and consequently more uncertainty about rival elites’ political fortunes, which produced challenges to super-presidentialism. Russia’s experience with regional politics, by contrast, has not produced a similarly stable balance of power between rival forces, because the country’s minority groups were too diverse and dispersed to form a unified constituency that could challenge the political dominance of the center. The structural underpinnings of elite competition help to explain why the preferences of self-interested politicians to concentrate or disperse political power changed over time in ways that promoted unstable super-presidentialism in Ukraine compared to much more durable super-presidentialism in Russia. / text

Soll Verfassung nicht nur in alt-konstitutionalistischer Manier Politik und Staat einhegen und begrenzen, sondern Letzteren auch Ziele und Orientierung verleihen, im Idealfall sogar gesellschaftliche Rahmenbedingungen adäquat verarbeiten, dann kann sie nicht als bloß statisches Normengefüge begriffen und interpretiert werden. Vielmehr müssen unter von der Verfassung selbst gesetzten Bedingungen Änderungen möglich sein. In diesem dialektischen Spannungsverhältnis, in dem Wandel eine spezifische verfassungsrechtlich begründete Ordnung voraussetzt und Verfassung dauerhaft nur Akzeptanz finden kann, wenn sie Wandel verfassungskonform verarbeitet, bewegt sich die Verfassungspolitik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Der vorliegende Aufsatz geht der Frage nach, inwieweit dieses Wechselverhältnis von Politik und Recht die Entwicklung des Grundgesetzes geprägt hat. Welche auf Ordnung angelegte Normen wurden verändert? Lassen sich Trends des gestalterischen Wandels der Verfassung erkennen? Um diese Fragen beantworten zu können, skizziert der Beitrag zunächst die zentralen Ordnungsprinzipien des Grundgesetzes, wie sie 1948/49 gefasst wurden. Im zweiten und dritten Teil schildert er die Charakteristika der Verfassungsänderungen, die entweder durch Gesetz oder infolge Rechtsprechung des Bundesverfassungsgerichts stattfanden. Abschließend resümiert der Aufsatz die Reichweite des Verfassungswandels, diskutiert dessen Legitimation und die Fähigkeit des Grundgesetzes, politisches Handeln zu ordnen.

There is a large and diverse body of empirical research on constitutional change and "new constitutionalism" in contemporary societies, yet a general theory of constitutional change is still lacking. Researchers interested in democratic constitutionalism are confronted with various competing assumptions and explanations regarding particular, often unrelated, cases. In order to facilitate cross-referencing and conceptual consistency in the study of new constitutionalism in Latin America, this chapter provides an overview of the main theoretical perspectives on constitutional change beyond the specific regional context of Latin America, classifies the existing studies on constitutional change, and discusses their individual advantages and shortcomings.

The Canada Round was a period of megaconstitutional politics where many of the perennial topics of Canadian politics were viewed through a constitutional lens. This research analyzes the Canada Round of negotiations for its potential to act as a project in historical justice to address the state’s mistreatment of Indigenous peoples. By viewing constitutional change as a means of engaging in political redress, this research offers a corrective to understanding the dynamics of the Canada Round and provides an expanded understanding of redress to compensate for its limited and non-transformative nature in settler-colonial contexts by introducing the idea of redress constitutionalism. Through an analysis of the primary documents from the Canada Round, this research demonstrates that national Indigenous organizations—the Assembly of First Nations, the Métis National Council, the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, and the Native Council of Canada—sought to employ constitutional change for its reparative potential to address long-standing injustices against Indigenous peoples in Canada caused or worsened by the constitution. Therefore, the failure to significantly renew the constitution was also a failure to significantly engage in redress, remedy their historical exclusion from decision making, and respond to the suppression of their self-determination. / Graduate

Esta dissertação objetiva situar o tema das mutações constitucionais no contexto da dinâmica do sistema jurídico e demonstrar a interdependência entre força normativa da Constituição e mudança constitucional, abordando as divergências terminológicas existentes, a relação dialética entre reforma e mutação constitucional e os limites desta última. Pretende- se, também, alertar para a necessidade de considerar questões de capacidade institucional e efeitos dinâmicos no contexto de uma Constituição viva, na qual a mudança decorre da participação de todos os Poderes, assim como da sociedade. No tocante ao Poder Judiciário, com apoio no constitucionalismo democrático e nas implicações constitucionais do backlash (reação social contrária às decisões judiciais), demonstra-se que a mutação via judicial pode contribuir para a legitimidade democrática da Constituição. Resgatam-se, ainda, os papéis que os Poderes Executivo e Legislativo podem desempenhar no rumo das mutações constitucionais, especialmente através da aprovação e nomeação de Ministros do Supremo Tribunal Federal e de emendas constitucionais, leis e outros atos legislativos, de maneira que as mutações resultem de um contínuo diálogo constitucional. Para testar a aplicação dessas teorias ao direito brasileiro, traça-se um panorama de diversas mutações constitucionais no Brasil e examinam-se, detalhadamente, dois casos: no primeiro, negando-se a mutação da norma que faculta ao Senado suspender a execução de lei declarada inconstitucional pelo STF e, no segundo, reconhecendo, mediante análise histórica e sociológica, a mutação do princípio da igualdade que está na base das discussões sobre as ações afirmativas raciais. / This essay intends to place the theme of constitutional change in the context of judicial system dynamics and to show the interdependence between Constitution normative strength and constitutional change, approaching the existing terminological divergencies, the dialetic relation between formal and informal constitutional change and the limits of the last one. It is also intended to warn about the need to take into consideration matters of institutional capacity and dynamic effects in the context of a living Constitution, in which the change derives from the participation of all the Powers and from the society as well. Concerning the Judicial Power, with support on democratic constitutionalism and constitutional implications of backlash (contrary social reaction to judicial decisions), it is demonstrated that constitutional change through judicial means may promote Constitution democratic legitimacy. It is likewise rescued the roles that the Executive and Legislative Powers may play in the course of constitutional changes, specially through the approval and nomination of the Federal Supreme Court Ministers and via constitutional amendments, laws and other legislative acts, so that the changes arise from an ongoing constitutional dialogue. To test the application of these theories into Brazilian law, it is drawn a landscape of several constitutional informal changes in Brazil and examined, in detail, two cases: in the first one, by denying the change of the norm that allows the Senate to cease the execution of a law declared inconstitutional by the Supreme Court and, in the second, by recognizing, according to historical and sociological analysis, the informal change of the principle of equality which is in the bottom of the debates over the racial affirmative actions.

Esta dissertação objetiva situar o tema das mutações constitucionais no contexto da dinâmica do sistema jurídico e demonstrar a interdependência entre força normativa da Constituição e mudança constitucional, abordando as divergências terminológicas existentes, a relação dialética entre reforma e mutação constitucional e os limites desta última. Pretende- se, também, alertar para a necessidade de considerar questões de capacidade institucional e efeitos dinâmicos no contexto de uma Constituição viva, na qual a mudança decorre da participação de todos os Poderes, assim como da sociedade. No tocante ao Poder Judiciário, com apoio no constitucionalismo democrático e nas implicações constitucionais do backlash (reação social contrária às decisões judiciais), demonstra-se que a mutação via judicial pode contribuir para a legitimidade democrática da Constituição. Resgatam-se, ainda, os papéis que os Poderes Executivo e Legislativo podem desempenhar no rumo das mutações constitucionais, especialmente através da aprovação e nomeação de Ministros do Supremo Tribunal Federal e de emendas constitucionais, leis e outros atos legislativos, de maneira que as mutações resultem de um contínuo diálogo constitucional. Para testar a aplicação dessas teorias ao direito brasileiro, traça-se um panorama de diversas mutações constitucionais no Brasil e examinam-se, detalhadamente, dois casos: no primeiro, negando-se a mutação da norma que faculta ao Senado suspender a execução de lei declarada inconstitucional pelo STF e, no segundo, reconhecendo, mediante análise histórica e sociológica, a mutação do princípio da igualdade que está na base das discussões sobre as ações afirmativas raciais. / This essay intends to place the theme of constitutional change in the context of judicial system dynamics and to show the interdependence between Constitution normative strength and constitutional change, approaching the existing terminological divergencies, the dialetic relation between formal and informal constitutional change and the limits of the last one. It is also intended to warn about the need to take into consideration matters of institutional capacity and dynamic effects in the context of a living Constitution, in which the change derives from the participation of all the Powers and from the society as well. Concerning the Judicial Power, with support on democratic constitutionalism and constitutional implications of backlash (contrary social reaction to judicial decisions), it is demonstrated that constitutional change through judicial means may promote Constitution democratic legitimacy. It is likewise rescued the roles that the Executive and Legislative Powers may play in the course of constitutional changes, specially through the approval and nomination of the Federal Supreme Court Ministers and via constitutional amendments, laws and other legislative acts, so that the changes arise from an ongoing constitutional dialogue. To test the application of these theories into Brazilian law, it is drawn a landscape of several constitutional informal changes in Brazil and examined, in detail, two cases: in the first one, by denying the change of the norm that allows the Senate to cease the execution of a law declared inconstitutional by the Supreme Court and, in the second, by recognizing, according to historical and sociological analysis, the informal change of the principle of equality which is in the bottom of the debates over the racial affirmative actions.

The last two decades have witnessed a period of constitutional change without precedent in the United Kingdom’s contemporary history, and prominent constitutionalists have suggested that these transformations signified primarily a legalisation of the British constitutional settlement. The present research hence offers a review of the most salient and impactful instances of constitutional change since 1997 with the aim of assessing in what ways the UK could be transitioning from a more political to a more legal constitutional framework. It highlights a greater reliance on legal devices to regulate constitutional processes and more frequent resort to judicial mechanisms of constitutional control. Indeed, the virtual entrenchment of various classes of norms (ECHR rights, common law constitutional rights and principles, Thoburn-‘constitutional statutes’) suggests the formation in British public law of a ‘bloc de constitutionnalité’ that could serve as basis for increasingly genuine forms of constitutional review. Concurrently, British courts are performing more of the functions of constitutional courts and appear willing to assume the role of constitutional guardian ascribed to the judiciary in a legal-constitutional model. Overall, the political constitution and its core principle of parliamentary sovereignty seem to be under challenge, particularly in judicial and jurisprudential debates grounded in the influential theory of common law constitutionalism. We therefore argue that the British constitution can no longer be described as exclusively ‘political’ and that there is at least some evidence of a trend towards legal constitutionalism in the UK.

This thesis is arguing that Sweden needs to change the legislation for how the constitution can be changed, to maintain democracy and strengthen the constitutionalism in the country. The argument is based on the fact that the Swedish constitution is easy to change, and the time frame for a change is short if there is a political majority in the parliament. Constitutionalism is often connected with the rule of law, division of powers and constitutional courts, but is in this thesis mainly used as an idea of a restriction of the political majority to prevent misuse of the political power, but also as a tool to maintain democracy. The tension between democracy and constitutionalism is also discussed throughout the thesis to conclude if constitutionalism could be used without interfering with sovereignty of the people. A comparative study is done with Hungary, and the political development in the country is used as an example of the effect of a strong political majority without any boundaries. The countries similarities and differences are presented in relation to democracy and different types of legislation regarding constitutional change. A discussion is held on how constitutionalism can be used as a tool to maintain individual rights and democracy, but also if there are any negative consequences with a strong constitutionalism. The thesis is focusing on the regulation of constitutional change, since it is discussed that the way of changing the constitution is the truly important one to maintain a democratic country. But other aspects of constitutionalism are discussed as well. At the end of the thesis there is a suggestion to change the legislation for constitutional change in Sweden. All the suggestions are supposed to extend the time frame before changes can be made and make it more difficult to change the constitution with a strong political majority.

[pt] Esta pesquisa analisou a extensão e o significado de expressões adotadas por ministros do Supremo Tribunal Federal, como notórias mudanças ou alterações fáticas ou jurídicas, utilizadas para fundamentarem mutações constitucionais informais de dispositivos da redação original da Constituição de 1988, e se com isso haveria uma fundamentação adequada e específica, observando os princípios da segurança jurídica, da proteção da confiança e da isonomia, exigidos pelo Código de Processo Civil. A metodologia aplicada foi a pesquisa empírica por meio do estudo de quatro casos julgados pelo Pleno do Tribunal, no período de 05.10.1988 a 24.11.2022, quando foram analisadas dez mutações constitucionais judiciais neles detectadas. E ao final, apresentou-se algumas contribuições para a formação de uma teoria brasileira da mutação constitucional judicial, quando foi apresentado não só um novo conceito do fenômeno, como uma proposta para sua sistematização para uso pelo Pleno do STF, e um rol de certas circunstâncias que se mostraram irrelevantes à sua ocorrência. / [en] This research analyzed the extent and meaning of expressions adopted by ministers of the Federal Supreme Court, such as notable factual or legal changes or alterations, used to support informal constitutional mutations of provisions of the original wording of the Constitution of 88, and whether this would provide a basis appropriate and specific, observing the principles of legal certainty, protection of trust and equality, required by the Code of Civil Procedure. The methodology applied was empirical research through the study of four cases judged by the Full Court, from 10.05.1988 to 11.24.2022, when ten judicial constitutional mutations detected in them were analyzed. And in the end, the hypothesis of unfounded, adequate and specific judicial exercise was confirmed, without observing the aforementioned procedural principles. And as contributions to the formation of a Brazilian theory of judicial constitutional mutation, a new concept of the phenomenon was presented, a proposal for its systematization for use by the Plenum of the STF, and a list of certain circumstances that proved to be irrelevant to its occurrence.