Constitutional Reform Processes and Political Parties Principles for Practice

This publication provides a set of guiding principles for constitutional reform. These have been taken from practical experiences of constitutional reform in a number of countries. As the case studies illustrate, although country-specific reform processes may be unique in terms of (priority) objectives, context, popular involvement and achievements, these
reform processes do go through similar phases.

For instance, prior to the actual content deliberations, there is the need to decide on the way the reform will be institutionalised and to inform, educate and consult ordinary citizens and specific interest groups. Once an agreement has been reached on a new (or revised) constitution, each country goes through an adoption and implementation phase.
As a result of these commonalities, we have been able to identify some common best practices that cut across these phases. Bolstered by empirical evidence from academic reflections, it is these best practices that are presented in this publication as guiding principles.

The Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD) 2012

The Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD) is a democracy assistance organisation of political parties in the Netherlands for political parties in young democracies.