The Constitution Amendments

Name

Institution

The Constitution Amendments

A constitutional amendment is usually an added correction or formal change mainly in the current written constitutions text of a state or nation. The constitution text itself is sometimes altered in some jurisdictions while others don’t change but the recommended effects change with the amendments.

It is with the above understanding that a formal amendment can then be described as change in the constitutions language in relation with the outlined procedures stipulated in the article v document. Its procedures description is stated as requiring a majority vote of two-thirds in both the Senate and the house, after which the proposal that is approved by the congress is sent for ratification by the state.

The process of amending or changing the constitution can be said was made challenging intentionally by the founders since their initial goal was to make the constitution more stable in order to serve even the coming generations. They took into account that once a new government is entrenched it would sideline or ignore laws that would reduce its hold on power and in this account they intentionally included in article V, a separate amendment process that would keep in check the president, congress and the Supreme Court (Antonin Scalia.et, al, 1998).

The informal amendment process indicates to changes in the application or interpretation of the constitution. This would extend to refer to expansion in the rights within the constitution like voting, to even previously excluded groups, or rights curtailing, that mainly depend on the previously held congress or court justice constitutional beliefs. Such changes usually happen due to the effects caused by the decisions made by the judiciary, usually by the congressional legislation or Supreme Court that are not considered as unconstitutional. It is however vital to note that the constitution is not affected in any way by the informal amendment process, just by its application and understanding, that is in a constant influx state due to the devolving or evolving sociopolitical conditions.

Strict constitution constructions refer to the strict application of the initial laws written by law or in the constitutions text. Subsequently, loose construction implies to the flexibility to do whatever an individual wants as long as they are not stated as illegal within the constitution. The two divergent perspectives aligns with formal versus informal methods of change due to their application in that the informal application tends to have more strict construction characteristics, while the informal method tends to align more with the loose construction which dictates the federal government to go against the usual stipulated laws within the constitution(Kenneth Dautrich.et,al,2012).

I particularly favor the loose construction method since its application allows for flexibility and this gives it a more humane and dynamic aspect in that like humans it is susceptible to changes. This freedom in the application is in contrast to the strict constructionism which is too rigid in its application and requires a strict application of particular judicial and legal philosophy interpretations that restrict and limit the implementation of the judicial and does not allow for any divergence once chosen.

The main reasons to support the loose constructionism or living constitution is in the constitutions concept that implies that the constitutional interpretation application is silent in itself, the elements of the living constitution indicate that the founders, most of who were legal theorists and lawyers, were already aware of the underlying issues, which means that they knew beforehand the implications and confusion that would have arose due to the lack of clear interpretation of the constitution. In addition this implies that if the founders intended the constitution to be interpreted differently by future generations they would have indicated it, and the lack of such clause indicate clearly that there was no such intention and there was never intended to be a fixed method of interpreting the constitution.

In relation to the above pragmatic argument, it is evident that if judges were not allowed to participate in the constitutional rights interpretation, the current modern society values would not have been reflected more, and this would have necessitated a recurrent amendment to incorporate the changes which has never happened.

Another reason for the preference would be on the aspect of not viewing the living constitution as the governing society’s foundational concept and not simply as just a law. This is in the understanding that laws in order to be followed have to be clear and fixed, and if the constitution can be looked at as more than a set of laws can provide the foundation for the laws since they will act as guidance and in this way the benefits and costs of such fixed concept and meanings will be different.

Reference

Antonin Scalia and Amy Gutmann, (1998) A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 36–41

Kenneth Dautrich, David A. Yalof (2012) The Enduring Democracy, engage Learning. Print