2 Written and Unwritten Constitution

Written constitution: a single (or systematically codified) documentary instrument, deliberately enacted by a constituent authority, containing the essentials of the state's organization — ordinarily supreme over ordinary law and entrenched by special amendment procedure. Exemplars: USA (1787 — the oldest modern written constitution), India (1950), Nepal (2015). Merits: certainty and accessibility (one book, knowable); clear hierarchy (constitutional supremacy and review); deliberate design (rights entrenched against ordinary majorities); symbolic unity (the constitution as the nation's charter). Demerits: rigidity risk (a document too hard to amend governs by evasion or judges' creativity); litigation volume (every clause breeds constitutional cases); the "one document" illusion — no written constitution ever contains all its constitution's rules (conventions and interpretation fill the gaps — Unit 1's sources).Unwritten constitution: no single enacted document; the constitution is an accumulated body of statutes, judicial decisions, conventions and authoritative works. Exemplar: the United Kingdom — Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights 1689, Acts of Union, Parliament Acts, and the massive convention layer (ministerial responsibility, cabinet collective solidarity); also Israel and New Zealand (no single entrenched document, by choice). Merits: elasticity (evolves by ordinary statute and practice without formal amendment — "the constitution grows"); maturity (rules tested by time); democratic flexibility (each generation legislates its own constitutional rules). Demerits: uncertainty (what exactly is the constitution? — an argument, not a document);…