Talk:Constitutional convention (political custom)

"Constitutional convention"

 * The discussions in this section refer to the fact that this page was originally located at Constitutional convention, and that the page Constitutional convention (political meeting) was originally located at Constitutional Convention.

In the United States, the Constitutional Convention was the meeting of representatives from every state to write the Constitution. This meaning seems different from what is being written here. We need a separate article with a capital "C". Does someone have some insights into this? -- Zoe

I think that there are various possible nomenclatures in Alexandria, Virginia it is called the Federal Convention of 1787, this is also the name given to it by the Avalon Project at Yale University. However some people do call it the Constitutional Convention of 1787 such as those who have contributed to United States Constitution. Reminds me of the joke about Canadians. What do they do when they go to Heaven? Organize a convention. (I'm allowed to tell this as I am a Canadian.) This is already an orphan called Constitutional Convention that has been around for months. Alex756

Um, the US section is wrong, horribly, re House members. The Constitution is quite clear that they have to live in the district they represent. Precisely how one defines "live", however, is another question entirely. --Penta 02:28, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * That is not correct, see the section below. Mateo SA | talk 02:09, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

How would we go about calling for a new constitutional convention in the United States? Suppose we wanted to consider an amendment to disband the union. It has been a grand experiment, but on many levels we must accept the fact that the experiment is a dismal failure. Can 'We, the People' propose an end to it? J. R.

Contradiction!
"notably in Britain, which has no written constitution" - This contradicts the page on the UK Constitution, which states this is not strictly true. I will not edit myself, in case I misunderstand.

- Jax

This is not entirley true.

Britain has no written constitution in the strict sense. A constitution is entrenched and cannot (except via special proceedure) be amended. In England, parliament is supreme, meaning it cannot bind its sucessors. This means that subsequent parliaments are free to do away with any constitutional statute we have, and therefore codification in an unchanging constitution is impossible.

We do however have what have been described as "Constitutional Statutes", See the Judgment of Laws, J in Thoburn v Sunderland City Council, in which he states things like the bill of rights, magna carta, ECA 1972 and HRA 1998 can only be repealed expressly.

Hope that clears things up a bit. Will 22:49, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Can't the British Parliament use "manner and form" to entrench an Act? That is, it would define in the act that the parliament for amending or repealing the act would be the Lords, Commons and the people voting in a referendum. We did this in NSW in 1932 and it was upheld by the Privy Council. There may, however be reasons it cannot be done in the UK, but I can't see them.

U.S. Constitutional Conventions
Representatives do not have to live in the District they represent, but must be in the State; Article I, Section 2, Clause 2:

''No Person shall be a Representative who shall not ... be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.''

There is provision to call a new Constitutional Convention contained in Article V of the US Constitution that requires the consent of 2/3 of the States to call for such a Convention. I'm not sure exactly what the legal status of a Constitutional Amendment to disband the Union would be, but I suspect it would be unconstitutional since it is anti-constitutional. Much like the Articles of Confederation, I suspect the Union would just disband by the virtue of the States no longer sending representatives to the federal government.

When discussing US Constitutional conventions, the Article is horrifically misguided; It takes what are political conventions such as Senate Leaders not campaigning against one another and calls them constitutional conventions, nor is a televised debate a constitutional convention but a political one.

When I have some time over the next couple of days I will go over the US section and update it. --New Progressive 09:18, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree, I have removed some dubious "constitutional conventions" in this section that would not fit most definitions. --Grouse 23:38, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

--- The United States has a number of conventions about how the government is run, but they are not of constitutional significance, not at a constitutional level, and are not regarded as part of the Constitution. --Daniel C. Boyer 14:09, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

That is exactly the status of constitutional conventions in the other countries in the article. The articles makes clear that these conventions do not have legal force and are not justiceable in any court. It would be much better to resolve this in discussion than continue an edit war. I agree some of the US examples do not meet the article's defintion, but deleting the entire US section is excessive. Alan 15:27, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

It should be noted that when first elected (and prior to the 2001 redistricting) PA Congressman Bob Brady did not live in the district. J. J. in PA (talk) 00:32, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Canada
I don't understand the following example from the article:
 * Such conventions also exist in other Commonwealth parliamentary democracies such as Canada under the British North America Act of 1867 (also known as the Canadian Constitution) which was an act of the British Parliament which created the nascent Canadian Parliament even though by convention it was agreed to by the Fathers of Confederation, who were representatives of the various colonies of British North America. So while it had been signed by these individuals on 29 March 1867, it did not enter into force of law until it was signed by the British monarch as an Act of Parliament.
 * This seems to be saying "Canadians pretend they adopted their own laws, whereas in fact the British gave Canada its laws". Whether this is true is perhaps contentious, but what concerns me is not that but rather whether it is relevant to the present article.  It would seem to be more of a legal fiction or legitimacy or founding myth or something, whereas the article defines constitutional conventions as relating to procedure rather than legitimacy. Joestynes 18:29, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It would only be contentious if one group of people were ignorant on the subject. It is an absolute fact that it was the BNA that created Confederation even if the idea was hatched by the Fathers of Confederation.  --Daniel C. Boyer 14:14, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * It's just trying to say that the leaders followed procedures and such before actually being stamped into law across the lake (as per convention). Not the best example.  Actually Canada did not have constitutional sovereignty from Britian until 1982 under Pierre Trudeau.--sansvoix 05:53, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Constitutional conventions: practices that emerge over time and are generally accepted as binding rules of the political system. Conventions do not have the status of constitutional law and thus are no enforceable by the courts. In Canada there are many elements of Constitution that are not codified. For instance it is a fundamental requirement of the Constitution that if the Opposition obtains the majority at the pools, the Government must tender its resignation. As fundamental as this is, it does not form a part of constitutional law. The pain purpose of constitutional conventions is to ensure that the legal framework of the Constitution will be operated in accordance with the prevailing constitutional values or principles of the period [Supreme Court of Canada, Attorney General of Manitoba et al. v. Attorney General of Canada et al., 28 Sept. 1982].

70.55.213.199 (talk) 15:54, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

the section in this article pertaining to Canada we should add all money (or supply) bills must originate in the House of Commons. here's some quote to backup: "The business of supply is the process by which the government asks Parliament to appropriate the funds required to meet its financial obligations and to implement programs already approved by Parliament. The Crown, acting on the advice of its responsible Ministers, transmits to the House of Commons the government’s projected annual expenditures, or “estimates”, for parliamentary scrutiny and approval. The House of Commons has sole authority to grant the “supplies” needed to satisfy the government’s demands. All financial legislation (which includes all government expenditures) must originate in the House of Commons.[104] Once supply is granted, the government can draw on the Consolidated Revenue Fund to meet its financial obligations.[105]"

- House of Commons Procedure and Practice Second Edition, 2009 http://www2.parl.gc.ca/procedure-book-livre/Document.aspx?sbdid=F26EB116-B0B6-490C-B410-33D985BC9B6B&sbpid=6E039746-E713-40D2-AEB8-46826181F5AB&Language=E&Mode=1  38.112.107.212 (talk) 19:37, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

NPOV
I'm tempted to add a NPOV tag to this entire article. There are 6 instances call for citations in the entire article, and 4 of them are in the Canadian section, with only one entry there not having citations called for. To me, this seems like some serious bias. Nickjbor (talk) 06:51, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

added cleanup tag
Some of this is quite repetitive. Also there's a section on "Constitutional Conventions in the United Kingdom" but also one on "United Kingdom" under "Examples of constitutional conventions". Joriki 03:55, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I came here to say the same thing, twelve years later! The text of the "Constitutional Conventions in the United Kingdom" section of this page is extremely similar to that of the dedicated page on the subject. Do we need both? Ministry (talk) 08:28, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

External links modified
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