{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.02280130293159609, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 4.840304182509506, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
The First Issue About Bills of Rights

Liberal constitutionalists assume that a constitutional bill of rights, inscribed in a text called ‘The Constitution’, guarantees the existence and institutional protection of universal human rights. The constitutional experiences of common law states in both the West and South have lent suspicion to such an assumption. When the Executive arm of the state has declared an emergency, constitutional rights vis-a-vis the state have been suspended in the interest of the state. The crucial question is ‘why?’ This essay argues that the explanation does not lie in the drafting of a constitutional text. Nor does it flow from the method of judicial reasoning. Nor does it lie in the relationship between the legislature and the courts. Nor does the answer lie upon the issue of interpretivism versus non-interpretivism. The explanation rests in the image or prism through which the legal and political elite of any one society has conceived legal reality at any point in time. In particular, such an image constitutes the most critical element of a jurist’s legal consciousness. The jurist’s image informs one as to ‘what is a constitution?’ or, what may be the same, ‘what makes constitutional law constitutional?’ An image of a constitution suggests what issues the jurist ought to ask. And that question concerns which institution ought to ask the issues and where should one look for the answers. The first issue about a bill of rights concerns the jurists’ presupposed image of a constitution.