Three Types Of The Constitution: The Constitution Of A Constitution

The Constitution of a country is the fundamental law of the land—the basis on which all other laws are made and enforced. It has been described as a “superior or supreme law” with “perhaps greater efficiency and authority”, and “higher sanctity”, and more permanence than ordinary legislation. Nevertheless, a suitable provision for amendment is considered to be a part of the very nature of the Constitution. A democratic Constitution has to be particularly responsive to changing conditions, since a Government founded on the principle of popular sovereignty, “must make possible the fresh assertion of the popular will as that will change”

According to John Burgess, a complete Constitution consists of three fundamental parts. The first and the

Prof. A.V. Dicey defines two types of Constitutions— the flexible as ‘one under which every law of every description can legally be changed with the same ease and in the same manner by one and the same body’, and the rigid Constitutions as ‘one under which certain laws generally known as constitutional or fundamental laws, cannot be changed in the same manner as ordinary laws’.

The term “amendment” when used with respect to a Constitution, includes all meanings such as alteration, repeal, variation, addition, revision, or deletion of any provision of the Constitution by following the constitutional process. It can be said to include every kind of change that is brought about in the Constitution by the process of amendment. In the legal system it is used to amend the Constitution but not to end the Constitution. The essence of a written Constitution lies in the procedure prescribed for amendment of the Constitution.

For example, Garner holds that "the most definite source of Constitutional expansion particularly in republican states is, of course, formal amendment of the written instrument in accordance with the method of procedure set forth by it. Provision for its own alteration