Constitutions Abroad
Uploaded by PeachiKiwi on Apr 21, 2001
The Constitution of the United States of America is unique in many ways. It is also has various similar qualities from the constitutions of other countries around the world. The constitutions of Switzerland, Poland, and Germany have commonalties with that of the United States’ constitution because they all talk about freedom and personal liberty, use the separation of powers as an effective way to run the government, and the elections process.
Article 2 of the Swiss Constitution states that, “The Swiss Confederation protects the liberty and rights of the people and safeguards the independence and security of the country.” This article is very similar to that of the First Amendment of the United States’ Constitution. This amendment states:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Freedom and basic personal liberties such as these are widely exercised in many worldly constitutions.
However, this is not the only shared characteristic that the U.S. Constitution shares with those of the rest of the world. Other countries such as Poland have the effective system of the separation of powers working with them, as does the United States. We all know that the separation of powers was established so that no one specific group in the government would be able to dominate our country. This concept is very much like Poland’s way of keeping the power out of one single unit. Article 10 of the Polish Constitution states:
The system of government of the Republic of Poland shall be based on the separation of and balance between the legislative, executive and judicial powers. Legislative power shall be vested in the House of Representatives and the Senate, executive power shall be vested in the President of the Republic of Poland and the Council of Ministers, and the judicial power shall be vested in courts and tribunals.
Because more than one country uses this method and has been successful for quite some time, it is safe to say that this particular way of running the government is fair and effective.
Other effective measures have been taken by the U.S. to ensure a smoothly operated government. Much like the Constitution of the United States, the German constitution holds the law of fair, free, and secret elections....