Comparative Analysis of Malta, UK, and US Constitutions
Importance of the Constitution
The Constitution is the primary legal document and the supreme law of any independent country. Constitutions differ according to a country’s date of independence and the type of power prevailing. Frequently, constitutions are affected by the neighboring states or by the experience of the country, the colony of which the newly independent state is. For instance, Malta, which had long been a British colony, took much of its constitutional basis from the United Kingdom’s supreme law (Xuereb, 2019). This paper aims to compare and contrast the constitutions of Malta, the UK, and the USA.
Form of Government and Adoption
The first aspect of comparison is the form of government. Malta and the USA are republics, whereas the UK is a constitutional monarchy. The Maltese constitution was adopted in 1964 (Xuereb, 2019) and underwent a series of amendments, the latter of which were introduced in 2020 (Borg, 2020). The US Constitution was adopted in 1787; however, state constitutions for each US state were subsequently adopted (Bulman-Pozen & Seifter, 2021). Meanwhile, for the UK constitution, there is no concrete date of adoption, as it is primarily unwritten (Young et al., 2019). Still, each country’s constitution strives to protect its citizens’ freedoms and to entitle them to rights that guarantee a dignified life.
Federal and State Constitutions
It is possible to draw a connection between state constitutions and the Maltese one. Specifically, Malta’s constitution serves as the supreme law of the land, while also establishing sovereignty and statehood (Borg, 2020; Xuereb, 2019). The US state constitutions pursue a similar goal: to express commitment to democracy and represent the interests of each state’s citizens (Bulman-Pozen & Seifter, 2021).
Meanwhile, the UK constitution is unsettled, being “the only uncodified” one in Europe (Young et al., 2019, p. 83). Hence, it still needs improvement to better represent its people’s rights. Although the Maltese constitution was primarily based on the UK’s, it has ultimately developed more common features with those of the US state constitutions.
References
Borg, T. (2020). The 2020 constitutional amendments: A legal analysis. Elsa Malta Law Review, 96-109.
Bulman-Pozen, J., & Seifter, M. (2021). The democracy principle in state constitutions. Michigan Law Review, 119(5), 859-932.
Xuereb, P. G. (2019). The constitution of Malta: Reflections on new mechanisms for synchrony of values in different levels of governance.
Young, A. L., Birkinshaw, P., Mitsilegas, V., & Christou, T. A. (2019). Europe’s gift to the United Kingdom’s unwritten constitution – Juridification.
