What are Constitutions?
Constitutionalism refers to the practice of establishing the society’s basic laws. Those laws usually form the framework for organizing the government, set forth the procedures and powers attached to the various governmental institutions, and establish various rights of the citizenry. The basic laws that are a society’s constitution are not, however, distinguished from nonconstitutional laws by performance of these functions. Nonconstitutional laws can and often do organize the government, set forth government powers, and establish rights, and constitutions often deal with matters outside these categories. Rather, the line between constitutions and nonconstitutional law is best drawn by reference either to where the laws stand in the chain of legal validity or to how entrenched the laws are against change. Constitutions are the highest laws in the chain of legal validity in the sense that no law inconsistent with a constitutional law is legally valid, whereas the constitution’s legal v
