Constitutional republic
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A constitutional republic is a state where the head of state and other officials are elected as representatives of the people and must govern according to existing constitutional law that limits the government's power over citizens. In a constitutional republic, executive, legislative, and judicial powers are separated into distinct branches so that no individual or group has absolute power. The fact that a constitution exists that limits the government's power, makes the state constitutional. That the head(s) of state and other officials are chosen by election, rather than inheriting their positions, and that their decisions are subject to judicial review makes a state republican. An example of a consitutional republic is the United States of America.
Unlike a pure democracy, in a constitutional republic, citizens are not governed by the majority of the people but by the rule of law. Constitutional Republics are a deliberate attempt to diminish the threat of mobocracy thereby protecting minority groups from the tyranny of the majority by placing checks on the power of the majority of the population. The power of the majority of the people is checked by limiting that power to electing representatives who govern within limits of overarching constitutional law rather than the popular vote having legislative power itself. John Adams defined a constitutional republic as "a government of laws, and not of men."<ref>Levinson, Sanford. Constitutional Faith. Princeton University Press, 1989, p. 60</ref> Also, the power of government officials is checked by allowing no single individual to hold executive, legislative and judicial powers. Instead these powers are separated into distinct branches that serve as a check and balance on each other. A constitutional republic is designed so that "no person or group [can] rise to absolute power."<ref>Delattre, Edwin. Character and Cops: Ethics in Policing, American Enterprise Institute, 2002, p. 16.</ref>
The notion of constitutional republic originates with Aristotle's Politics and his notion of the polity. He Contrasts the polity or republican government with democracy and oligarchy in book 3, chapter 6 of the Politics.
Constitutional republics are advocated by classical liberals. The United States of America is the oldest constitutional republic in the world and the first comprehensive experiment in this conceived form of government. According to James Woodburn, in The American Republic and Its Government, "the constitutional republic with its limitations on popular government is clearly involved in the Constitution, as seen in the election of the President, the election of the Senate and the appointment of the Supreme Court." He says in a republic, as distinguished from a democracy, the people are not only checked in choosing officials but also in making laws.<ref>Woodburn, James Albert. The American Republic and Its Government: An Analysis of the Government of the United States, G. P. Putnam, 1903, pp. 58-59</ref> A Bill of Rights exists in the U.S. Constitution which protections certain individual rights. The individual rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights cannot be voted away by the majority of citizens if they wished to oppress a minority. To eliminate these rights would require government officals overcoming constitutional checks as well as a super majority of vote of Congress to amend the Constitution.
A constitutional republic is a form of liberal democracy, but not all liberal democracies are constitutional republics. For example, though the head of state is not elected in a monarchy, it may still be a liberal democracy if there is a parliament with elected representatives that govern according to constitutional law protecting individual rights (called a constitutional democratic monarchy.
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[edit] Support
Alexander Tsesis, in The Thirteenth Amendment and American Freedom: A Legal History says, to him, a constitutional republic means "a representative polity established on fundamental law, each person has the right to pursue and fulfill his or her unobtrusive vision of the good life. In such a society, the common good is the cumulative product of free and equal individuals who pursue meaningful aims."<ref>Tsesis, Alexander. The The Thirteenth Amendment and American Freedom: A Legal History, NYU Press, 2004, p. 5</ref>
[edit] Criticism
Karl Marx claimed that a constitutional republic is a protective legal framework for what he considered to be "capitalist exploitation." He says: "All the bourgeois economists are aware of is that production can be carried on better under the modern police than e.g. on the principle of might makes right. They forget only that this principle is also a legal relation, and that the right of the stronger prevails in their 'constitutional republics' as well, only in another form."<ref>Marx, Karl Marx's Outline of the Critique of Political Economy (Grundrisse)</ref>
[edit] References
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