The unamendable core

The idea

An amending power is created by a constitution, and a created power cannot destroy the thing that created it. Several constitutions state this expressly. Here the list is set out in Article 310.

What is in it

Human dignity. The republican form and popular sovereignty. The obligation to sustain the ecological conditions of life, and the binding force of the budgets. Social ownership and the abolition of income from mere holding. Participatory democracy and universal equal suffrage. The rights from which no derogation is ever permitted. Essential provision. Equality, and the extension of rights to every resident. Judicial independence and the Court's jurisdiction. The void acts of Article 265. And Article 310 itself.

What is not in it

Everything else in Titles I, II and III is amendable by the ordinary constitutional procedure. The housing guarantee, the twenty-four hour week and the residual unit all sit outside the core, and a future generation may revisit them by winning a referendum.

Enforcement

The Constitutional Chamber checks every amendment proposal against the core before it goes anywhere, and a proposal touching the core proceeds no further. If an amendment slips through and is later found to breach the core, the Court declares it void from the beginning. A series of amendments that reaches a forbidden result cumulatively is void from the point where the result is reached.

Replacement

The core survives even the replacement of the whole Constitution by an elected Convention.