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A threads post saying “There has never been another nation ever that has existed much beyond 250 years. Not a single one. America’s 250th year is 2025. The next 4 years are gonna be pretty interesting considering everything that’s already been said.” It has a reply saying “My local pub is older than your country”.
Just because it doesnt have a single document called “the constitution” doesnt mean they dont have one. A constitution is also just a bunch of laws.
Germany has the Grundgesetz (eng.: basic law) but not a Verfassung (eng.: constitution) but the Grundgesetz basicly is the constitution. A constitution is just the collection of fundamental laws of a state
Edit: and ye some laws are old, doesnt mean they are bad. “Seperation of chruch and state”, “freedom of religion”, “press freedom” “freedom of speech”, “right to gather” aso are old laws from the bill of rights from 1689 and yet they are still good.
Its not just about age, its about how a law is writen, phrased and its place in the modern day and society, that makes a law good or bad.
Germany has a criminal law which forbids the dancing on good friday, and the till 1993 the Schaumweinsteuer for the emperors fleet (a tax on all bubbly alcoholic drinks)* long after it no longer had an emperor nore an empire nore an empirial fleet
*side tangent: Man english is missing out so many great words. Atleast dutch has it as “Mousserende wijn”
Constitutionalism is based around the idea of having a legal system of two layers - ordinary day to day law, and a deeper more profound law that somehow matters more and should be harder to change.
The US pioneered the idea of having a constitution from which the branches of government derives their power and that sets the rules of the game.
In the UK, all laws are technically of equal value, and the system instead relies heavily on tradition and obscure institutions like the monarchy and house of lords. They don’t have a constitution, though of course they have laws that constitutes the law of the land. It’s not necessarily a bad thing - if laws existed for hundreds of years, it might be because they do some good or at least limited harm.
German constitutionalism is largely built around the ideas of Kelsen, and is very much a system of constitutionalism. That they opted for the word Grundgesetz instead of Verfassung for the legal text is of course interesting, but who interprets this text other than the BundesVERFASSUNGSgericht? It’s a constitution, they just named it the basic law. Reflecting precisely this two-level system of laws that constitutionalism is designed around, and that the UK lacks.
What should and should not go into constitutions is an ongoing debate of course, but I haven’t heard anyone argue for provisions about sparkling wine. Sadly.