Constitutional Reform Processes and Political Parties - Principles for Practice

This document explores the constitutional reform processes and political parties. The paper (1) discusses the guiding principles applicable to the different phases of constitutional reform (2) examines the importance of the constitution in delineating the relationship between the state and its people, and making clear the role political parties can play in defining this relationship and (3) dives deeper into this issue by exploring to contributions of political parties, as representatives of the people in a state, to the legitimacy of a constitution or the constitution-reform process. To illustrate the role of political parties in the constitution-making or reform processes, the paper looks at a series of case studies, namely Bolivia, Ghana, Indonesia, Iraq, Kenya, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. The case studies illustrate the uniqueness of every constitutional process, but the last section of the paper breaks the constitution reform process into basic phases, and sets out basic characteristics and issues to consider for each.