Project shines spotlight on constitutions around the world

[garbon]

http://news.yahoo.com/project-signs-spotlight-constitutions-around-world-100227000--politics.html

The new website, called Constitute, is at https://www.constituteproject.org, and it literally collects constitutions from A (as in Afghanistan) to Z (as in Zimbabwe), in an easy-to-access form that is text searchable and viewable by subject.
The project's editors have more than 300 topics listed and tagged in the constitutions.

So if you are curious about constitutions that mention the right to bear arms, you can just click on that topic and see what's in the constitutions of five countries that define that right (Guatemala, Haiti, Iran, Mexico, and the United States).

There has been a definite growth in the number of countries that are creating and amending constitutions, so Constitute serves a need by making research into other nation's constitutions that much easier.

"New constitutions are written every year. The people who write these important documents need to read and analyze texts from other places. Constitute offers access to the world's constitutions that users can systematically compare them across a broad set of topics—using a modern, clean interface," the project says in an explanation on its website.

A typical use of the Constitute website would be to research a regional topic. Users can select some or all of the countries in a major global region, say, to research amendments related to marriage. We found 13 nations that discussed marriage in the Americas region (North, Central, and South America) and 19 nations in Europe.

Another neat feature allows a user to clip, or pin, parts of different constitutions together in one PDF file that can be downloaded for future use.

Google supplied funding to the University of Texas at Austin, with additional financial support from the Indigo Trust and IC2. The university was also involved in designing and implementing the project online.

Three scholars at the Comparative Constitution Project, a separate program that played a key role in the Constitute project, also worked with the University of Illinois on the analysis and tagging of all that data and all the words that appear on the Constitute website.

The Comparative Constitution Project also has some very interesting data on its own site, based on its scholarly research, which ranks constitutions around the world on the strength (at least on paper) of its executive, legislative, and judicial branches.

The rankings also show the country with the longest constitution (India, with 146,385 words), the shortest (Jordan, with 2,270) and the oldest (the United States, followed by Norway and Belgium).

[Grey Fox]

They don't have Canada. That's weird, it's not like our constitutions aren't available online in full for free.

[The Brain]

No Sweden. Lazy?

[mongers]

Was Germany included as it would make an interesting comparison, being relatively recent, in large part written with American and British 'help' and sown in newly ploughed soil. 

[The Brain]

The Hungarian preramble is a hoot.

[Barrister]

They don't have Canada. That's weird, it's not like our constitutions aren't available online in full for free.

No United Kingdom either.

[Malthus]

They don't have Canada. That's weird, it's not like our constitutions aren't available online in full for free.

No United Kingdom either.

[The Larch]

The Hungarian preramble is a hoot.

Jesus on a pogo stick Christ what a bunch of drivel.

[Malthus]

The Hungarian preramble is a hoot.

Jesus on a pogo stick Christ what a bunch of drivel.

For some reason I can't open the site. What does it say?

[garbon]

The Hungarian preramble is a hoot.

Jesus on a pogo stick Christ what a bunch of drivel.

For some reason I can't open the site. What does it say?

preamble

WE, THE MEMBERS OF THE HUNGARIAN NATION, at the beginning of the new millennium, with a sense of responsibility for every Hungarian, hereby proclaim the following:

We are proud that our king Saint Stephen built the Hungarian State on solid ground and made our country a part of Christian Europe one thousand years ago.
We are proud of our forebears who fought for the survival, freedom and independence of our country.
We are proud of the outstanding intellectual achievements of the Hungarian people.
We are proud that our people has over the centuries defended Europe in a series of struggles and enriched Europe's common values with its talent and diligence.
We recognise the role of Christianity in preserving nationhood. We value the various religious traditions of our country.
We promise to preserve the intellectual and spiritual unity of our nation torn apart in the storms of the last century. The nationalities living with us form part of the Hungarian political community and are constituent parts of the State.
We commit to promoting and safeguarding our heritage, our unique language, Hungarian culture, the languages and cultures of nationalities living in Hungary, along with all man-made and natural assets of the Carpathian Basin. We bear responsibility for our descendants; therefore we shall protect the living conditions of future generations by making prudent use of our material, intellectual and natural resources.
We believe that our national culture is a rich contribution to the diversity of European unity.
We respect the freedom and culture of other nations, and shall strive to cooperate with every nation of the world.
We hold that human existence is based on human dignity.
We hold that individual freedom can only be complete in cooperation with others.
We hold that the family and the nation constitute the principal framework of our coexistence, and that our fundamental cohesive values are fidelity, faith and love.
We hold that the strength of community and the honour of each person are based on labour, an achievement of the human mind.
We hold that we have a general duty to help the vulnerable and the poor.
We hold that the common goal of citizens and the State is to achieve the highest possible measure of well-being, safety, order, justice and liberty.
We hold that democracy is only possible where the State serves its citizens and administers their affairs in an equitable manner, without prejudice or abuse.
We honour the achievements of our historical constitution and we honour the Holy Crown, which embodies the constitutional continuity of Hungary's statehood and the unity of the nation.
We do not recognise the suspension of our historical constitution due to foreign occupations. We deny any statute of limitations for the inhuman crimes committed against the Hungarian nation and its citizens under the national socialist and communist dictatorships.
We do not recognise the communist constitution of 1949, since it was the basis for tyrannical rule; therefore we proclaim it to be invalid.
We agree with the members of the first free Parliament, which proclaimed as its first decision that our current liberty was born of our 1956 Revolution.
We date the restoration of our country's self-determination, lost on the nineteenth day of March 1944, from the second day of May 1990, when the first freely elected body of popular representation was formed. We shall consider this date to be the beginning of our country's new democracy and constitutional order.
We hold that after the decades of the twentieth century which led to a state of moral decay, we have an abiding need for spiritual and intellectual renewal.
We trust in a jointly-shaped future and the commitment of younger generations. We believe that our children and grandchildren will make Hungary great again with their talent, persistence and moral strength.
Our Fundamental Law shall be the basis of our legal order: it shall be a covenant among Hungarians past, present and future; a living framework which expresses the nation's will and the form in which we want to live.
We, the citizens of Hungary, are ready to found the order of our country upon the common endeavours of the nation.

[crazy canuck]

They don't have Canada. That's weird, it's not like our constitutions aren't available online in full for free.

Selection bias.

@BB 

[Malthus]

preamble

Thanks!

Nothing whatsoever about beets.