Democracy is more than a process

The argument

Proponents of this position argue that the objection to unamendable constitutions rests on a thin account of what democracy is. At its core, on this view, democracy is about preserving individual rights and freedoms; the vote is the means by which a people governs itself, not the whole of what self-government exists to protect. Judged by that standard, unamendable constitutions provide a far better mechanism for preventing human rights abuses and restrictions of civil rights than amendable constitutions do, because a guarantee that can be withdrawn by the same procedure that created it is only as secure as the intentions of whoever next commands that procedure. A right that may be amended away is, in practice, a right held at the discretion of others. This is why the barrier matters. Unamendable constitutional provisions are supposed to function as a barrier to change, and the point of the barrier is that there are aspects of a constitution which should be protected from alteration altogether. Amendments are made by whatever majority holds power at the time, and such majorities are transient and can be mistaken; the provisions at issue are exactly those that are supposed to be protected from the whims of the majority, because they reflect the nation's identity rather than its present preferences. To leave them open to revision is to make that identity — and the freedoms of anyone the majority of the day disfavours — contingent on each successive vote. Proponents therefore conclude that unamendable constitutions are not just compatible with democracy, they further democracy. Because democracy is more than a process, a constitution that places rights and foundational commitments beyond the reach of ordinary majorities is doing democratic work rather than obstructing it, and an unamendable constitution is on that reckoning the more democratic arrangement rather than the less.

Context

Democracy does not just involve the process through which we determine leaders and make collective decisions. Democracy means protecting certain inalienable rights. It means guaranteeing individual freedoms. In this regard, an unamendable constitution furthers democracy.

Premises

Counter-arguments

There are some aspects of the constitution that should be ammended. Certain states may be too reluctant to seek out more democratic methods of effective constitutional change. Parts of the constitution, specifically Article V of the constitution, can be subject to rigidity as well as being inconsistent with democratic legitimacy. Many have been critical because Article V makes the constitution difficult for the majority to ammend the consitution, something which is considered to be a tenement in democracy.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Defining democracy as the preservation of rights sets aside the majority rule the rival position rests on, so the premise settles the question by definition; and unamendability protects whatever a constitution happens to contain, which may entrench a restriction as easily as a right. [Rejecting P2] Insulating provisions from a transient majority is the standard case for supermajority thresholds rather than for unamendability — as the counter observes, provisions once thought to express a nation's identity have needed changing, and a clause that cannot be revised leaves no lawful route to correct it.