Towards a Truly Democratic Constitutionalism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54148/ELTELJ.2024.2.7Keywords:
constitutionalism, democracy, democratic governance, populism, the peopleAbstract
As constitutional scholars, we can fall into the error of treating constitutionalism as though it were primarily about limiting government. This article emphasises that the primary aim of constitutionalism ought to be to enable democratic governance, not constrain it. It treats democratic self-determination as having two components: 1) a commitment to building mechanisms by which the people are enabled to participate materially in their own governance on a basis of rough equality; and 2) a commitment to ensuring that the people see themselves as being governed by processes that they consider legitimate. Democratic self-government can take different forms in different societies, but there must be effective mechanisms for citizens – actual citizens, not notional citizens – to govern themselves collectively. The paper sketches some characteristics of a constitutionalism that meets those requirements. It also affirms that, for the people to govern themselves, a constitution must, in a real sense, take the people as it finds them, not impose a partial and caricatured definition upon them. This paper is a prolegomenon to such a constitutionalism, not a description of its totality. The latter is, of course, the work of we as citizens, and as constitutional scholars, through time.