The Constitution as the Executive-Judicial Battlefield

Abstract

In theory, the written Constitution is a document agreed upon which lays the parameters of governance in a geopolitical unit. Being largely a document of faith, it has some sacrosanct characteristics that should bind the people in that unit to accept its guidelines and obey its dictates, without exception. It prescribes the type of government, how that government is to be arrived at, and the powers and limitations of that government. It also presumes that the people to be entrusted in implementing that Constitution are men and women of honour who, in their differences, work hard to uphold the basic principles of that Constitution. That presumption is not always correct. Instead, the Constitution often becomes a battleground for Executive and Judicial institutional combatants to exercise power by controlling or monopolizing the interpretation of the Constitution