Time for a constitution?

This post appears to be less interested in making a constitution and more interested in creating FDR's proposed second Bill of Rights. The U.S. constitution is specifically successful because it demands that government not do certain things. a written constitution that demands what government must do would be a nightmare to it's constituents. The mere fact that a government has a constitution is not a winning formula by default. The core laws of a nation must be designed to restrict power. This post appears to demand that Israel create laws that demand a lot of power for the people in power. Let's hope if Israel creates a core written code that they keep what worked in Democracy in mind. If Israel goes this route it will merely mean that Israel will be less stable then it is.

(Time for a constitution by YANIV ROZNAI @ The Jerusalem Post)
Social justice! Welfare! Health! Housing! These are the slogans we hear nowadays from every street corner. But one outcry is missing: Constitution! And this is despite the fact that the absence of a written constitution is at the root of the current crisis.

So just from the opening here we can assume that the Yaniv Roznai is making the assumption that social inequalities are a result of a government that has no authority over it's people. A dubious opening idea.

Indeed, it would be true to say that Israel has a constitution, at least in the substantive sense. The basic laws of the state are its constitution. But that is a partial one, a limited and crippled one. The current situation is unsatisfactory. The protesters are asking to “change the rules of the game,” and this public protest has to be used to promote elections for a constituent assembly that would draft a constitution.

change the rules? But do the people benefit?

A constitution presupposes the existence of an original constituent power. It is established by the will of this power and is valid because it derives from a constitution-making capacity. In the modern era, the constitution of a nation is regarded as a creation ex-nihilo, receiving its normative and universal status from the political will of the people to act as a constitutional authority, and through which “the people” manifest themselves as a political and legal unity.

To assume something comes out of nothing which is what all constitutions do is a good thing, however not all constitutions last. Why? Because to control a system from a core document is a stupid idea. The only way a core document has any purpose is by limiting all that is put on top of it.

The original constituent power is never exhausted; it remains present, alongside and above every constitution.
However, it only manifests through constitutional events such as declarations of independence, revolutions, constitutional plebiscites, popular initiatives or special constitutional conventions. In order for the original constituent power to be direct, these forms must have a special character – i.e., separate from other public functions – thereby replacing revolution with peaceful means, incorporating actual, deliberate, free choice by society’s members.

WRONG! Laws do not come by peace. Laws and Government come out of the blood of those who fight for it. Now you know we are dealing with leftist propaganda.

The important feature is the collective nature of the original constituent power – the word constituere marks the act of founding together, jointly. The present public outcry can be such a constitutional event: hundreds of thousands of people going out to the streets mark the beginning of the awakening of the public collective, the resurrection of the original constituent power. There is a reason the leaders of the public outcry announced that “there is a feeling of reestablishing the state.”

sounds more like someone is putting a giant fart right in the middle of the land of milk and honey

The process of utilizing this awakening is not as complicated as it seems at first glance. The materials are out there. As of 2003, the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee has been working on drafting a national constitution. It has held dozens of meetings, received thousands of pages of background papers, all with the participation of academics, organizations and members of the public. Based on the committee’s debates, its staff prepared a detailed draft of a constitution that includes different alternatives and versions for various issues and is accompanied by explanations and proposals for discussion. This is a comfortable base on which to begin.

uh oh.

It has to be clear: A constitution and economic growth are inseparable. Constitutional stability can provide the essential predictability for markets to flourish. Moreover, research shows that constitutional stability is negatively associated with crisis propensity and positively associated with political stability, democracy and GDP per capita.

true, but not the way this guy is talking

A new constitution could also explicitly incorporate the social and economic rights neglected so far – the right to health, housing, education, etc. Such a move may help block the expansion of the existing economic inequality and spread an additional protective net for the citizens.

...there... he said it.

One has to look beyond the immediate demands of the outcry. Any solution that the government would propose would be no more than a cosmetic change – a slight renovation, a rearranging of the furniture. But we need a basic structural change. Therefore, the current momentum has to be utilized to promote the election of a constituent assembly separate from the Knesset. That assembly would have a single mandate: to prepare a constitution. Its work ought to be limited in time, and at the end, the constitution should be brought to the people in a referendum.
The current outcry is an opportunity that will not reappear any time soon. This is the time for a constitution.
The author is a PhD candidate at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

In conclusion this guy is looking to create a set of laws that do all the wrong ideas and claiming that this is a good thing because laws that are good work. These leftists are desperate to remarket something that sounds like socialism or labor in new packaging. Sadly people do fall for these gimmicks as we have seen from Obama. I just know there is denied correlative in there somewhere. I can just hear myself going... yeah... but...