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comment by Cumol
Cumol  ·  1635 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Will he go?

O.O that sounds like a shit show brewing...

I am currently wondering whether other countries have similar "loopholes". Aren't laws (specially when it comes to election) supposed to be clear to avoid such situations?

On a side note. This used his quarantime to write a whole book on a possible scenario in the year 2020...





KapteinB  ·  1633 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Many constitutions are written in a hurry. A rebellion has started, they need to formalise what they are fighting for, so a bunch of guys (no girls invited) shack up together for a few days to hammer out the details. I imagine this often leaves gaping loopholes.

It's also worth mentioning that some countries don't even have constitutions. The UK is a famous example.

Cumol  ·  1633 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Good point. Shouldn't the constitution then be revised to fix loopholes?

KapteinB  ·  1632 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Ideally yes, and sometimes they are. But a constitution needs to be hard to change, otherwise they're basically pointless. For example, here in Norway a change to the constitution requires a 2/3 majority in the parliament, twice, with en election between the two votes. And that's easy, compared to what it takes to change the US constitution.

Fun fact: The last amendment to the US constitution was #27, back in 1992, and it took 202 years and 223 days to be ratified by enough states to go into effect. (That was a very special case though. The 26th was ratified in a mere 100 days, back in 1971.)

Another issue is that the loopholes aren't always apparent in advance.