The Concept and History of Constitution

The idea of a constitution was first elaborated by Aristotle in his classification of governments as monarchies, tyrannies, aristocracies, oligarchies, democracies, and so on. For Aristotle, the best form of government – the best constitution – was that which combined elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy in such a way that the citizens of every class were enabled to enjoy their respective privileges and encouraged to exercise their respective responsibilities in the interest of the whole society.

In the Rome of the Stoic philosophers, government was viewed as organized and conducted under the rule of a universal reason and thus as reflecting a kind of universal constitution. This universalism was taken over by medieval Christian thinkers, who held that God's rule over the universe was the type of the justly constituted earthly state, a monarchy.

The modern idea of a constitution began to emerge after the Reformation, particularly in the works of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who developed the notion of the social contract. In the social-contract view, people agree among themselves to give up a portion of the absolute freedom that characterizes the pre-social "state of nature" in return for the security that an acknowledged sovereign government can provide. Locke's major works were particularly devoted to the division of rights between those assigned to the government and those retained by individuals and to the division of powers within the government. These writings had a great impact on the late 18^th-century authors of the American Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen.

A constitution, to be worthy of the name, must contain provisions for certain political attributes: stability, both of form and of procedure; yet, on the other hand, adaptability to the social, economic, technological, and other changes that are inevitable in the life of a state; accountability of those in power to some other organ of the state, such as an electorate; representation of the governed within the government; openness in the conduct of government; and division of power among distinct branches of government. Constitutional government is thus limited government, and it is a chief function of a constitution to serve as the standard of legitimacy by which governments may be judged.

In its wider sense, the term constitution means the whole scheme whereby a country is governed; and this includes much else besides law. The constitutional lawyer must constantly keep glancing backward into constitutional history; he must also keep his eye on current political practice and the day-to-day working of political institutions. In its narrower sense, "constitution" means the leading legal rules, usually collected into some document that comes to be almost venerated as "The Constitution." But no country's constitution can ever be compressed within the compass of one document, and even where the attempt has been made, it is necessary to consider the extralegal rules, customs, and conventions that grow up around the formal document.

Task 2. Check your understanding of the text providing answers to the
following questions.

1. The name of what ancient philosopher is the idea of a constitution associated with?

2. What kind of government did Aristotle consider to be the best?

3. What vision of government was characteristic of the Stoic philosophers and medieval Christian thinkers?

4. What is the essence of the social-contract vision of government?

5. Which documents were influenced by John Locke's works?

6. What requirements should a true constitution satisfy?

Task 3. Match the following English expressions with their Russian
equivalents.

Task 4. Translate the following text into Russian.

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