[en] The paper considers ‘octroyed’, ‘conceded’ or ‘granted’ constitutions of 19th century Europe whose common roots are to be found in the French ‘Charte constitutionnelle’ of 1814.
These Charters stem from a paternalistic process of domestic constitution-making engaged unilaterally by a monarch possessing the de facto constituent power and exercising it without the direct involvement of a body representing the people.
Such octroyed constitutions, which are of course to be opposed to democratically established ones, show nevertheless a number of specific characteristics which distinguish them also from ‘imposed constitutions’ in the usual sense.
The expression ‘constitutional octroy’ should not be used as a synonym for any process leading to an ‘imposed Constitution’. The contribution aims to develop and to validate or invalidate the value of a series of distinctive criteria and possible elements of a definition of ‘octroyed’ or ‘granted’ constitutions in order to underline their specificity.
Disciplines :
Public law
Author, co-author :
Gerkrath, Jörg ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance (FDEF) > Law Research Unit
External co-authors :
no
Language :
English
Title :
Are octroyed constitutions of the 19th century to be considered as 'imposed constitutions'?
Publication date :
November 2018
Event name :
Conference on ‘Imposed Constitutions: Aspects of Imposed Constitutionalism’