Why Draft a Constitution?

A question arising in the comparison of constitution-making is, why draft a constitution at all? What compels the need for such an arduous and perilous exercise?

In terms of the debates in Malaya in 1956-57, the term ‘written constitu­tion’ refers, not simply to a codified constitution, but to a document that is the supreme law.

However, constitutional supremacy was by 1957 clearly the norm for decolo­nising constitutions, and objection to this was not at all widespread in Malaya, as elsewhere.^[488] In the event, nonetheless, the 1957 Constitution did contain exten­sive elements of flexibility in its own terms. In addition, there was the contingent fact that the Alliance coalition was to occupy the seat of power in the long term, as well as a two-thirds legislative majority enabling it to amend the Constitution at will up until 2008.^[489] Therefore the fact of constitutional supremacy did not entail the rigidity that was feared by advocates of parliamentary supremacy. With the benefit of hindsight 50 years later, the Malayan Labour Party might have concluded that it got more or less what it asked for, as in its actual opera­tion the constitutional system has resembled parliamentary supremacy far more than constitutional supremacy. Over 65 years, it must be said, few have called for more constitutional flexibility, whereas many have lamented the lack of consti­tutional rigidity in the face of a welter of amendments, despite Article 4 of the Constitution, which lays down the supremacy of the Constitution.

III.