Constitution as an Anthropological or Sociological Document (original) (raw)

We know that a written constitution establishes, distributes, and limits power and provides mechanisms for deliberating and deciding on public policies. The constitutional theory is the consecuence of many factors, such as philosophical tradition on a human person, and reflected a broad consensus about life, dignity, freedom, equality, and property. That´s the Common Law vision about it against Civil Law, which defends a supreme law vision through the positivist doctrine. We can identify two kinds of constitutions with different but complementary purposes: (a) An anthropological text that represents the coming together of people of diverse ethnic groups, ideologies, regions, cultures, and religions. They are united in their diversity by a shared civic vision. (b) A sociological text that rests only upon pragmatic and procedural agreements, which are negotiating to provide the society a basis of peace and stability in a shared territory, with only a weak and conditional sense of shared identity or common purpose. This paper compare traditional and modern constitutions, looking for answers and exploring the differences between a fundamental agreement (an act of faith: UK, USA) with only a pragmatic and procedural document (legislative technique: Germany, Spain).