One basis of classifying constitution from the view point of their origin Jameson defines a written constitution as, “a work of conscious art and the result of a deliberate effort to lay down body of fundamental principle under which a government shall be organised.”
In other words, when a constitution owes its origin to a deliberate are embodied in a single document, it is said to be a written constitution. For instance, the constitution of India was drafted out by the Constitution assembly of India; a body specifically assigned the task of making a constitution.
Even the constitutions promulgated by kings and dictators also belong to this category. For instance, the present Constitution of Nepal was promulgated by king Mahendra. However, it is more accurate to call it an enacted constitution. For all written constitutions or the process of their operation, develop constitutional conventions which form the unwritten elements of constitutions.
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Similarly the unwritten Constitution of England contains numerous writter elements in the form of statutes, declarations of judicial decisions etc. Since a written constitution is enacted deliberately by a constituent body, it is better to call it an “enacted constitution”
As opposed to enacted or written constitution, we have “evolved” or unwritten constitution. The Constitution of Great Britain and Pre-1914 Hungary belong to this category. At present Great Britain is the only State having an evolved or unwritten constitution.
Garner defines an unwritten constitution as “one is which most if not all of the prescriptions have never been reduced to writing and formally embodied in a document or collection of documents. It consists largely of a mass of customs, usage’s and judicial decisions together with a smaller body of statutory’ enactment’s of a fundamental character, usually bearing different’ dates”.
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An evolved constitution is not deliberately formulated a Constituent Assembly or other constitution-making authority It grows out of political conventions, customs, and legislative enactment from time to lime. It is not made, but is born with ” nation. It is also supplemented by the decision of judges. As opposed to a country with a written constitution, in a country like
Britain with an evolved constitution there is no sanctifying about constitutional law. There is no such provision in Britain that equips the judiciary with the power of annulling the ordinary laws 0n account of the constitutional provisions.
