The Invisible Constitution in Comparative Perspective

17th October 1992 on the Mutual Relations Between the Legislative and Executive Institutions 

of the Republic of Poland and on Local Self-Government, Repealing the Constitution of the 

Republic of Poland of 22nd July 1952, note 22; Constitutional Act of 23rd April 1992, on the Pro-

cedure for Preparing and Enacting a Constitution for the Republic of Poland Dziennik Ustaw 

Nr 61 Poz 251 1992.

39 

UNSC Res 1483 (22 May 2003) UN Doc S/RES/1483; UNSC Res 1511 (16 October 2003) S/

RES/1511; UNSC Res 1546 (8 June 2004) S/RES/1546. SCR 1483; 1511; 1546.

40 

Global and Inclusive Agreement on Transition in The Democratic Republic of the Congo,  

Inter-Congolese Dialogue, Political Negotiations on the Peace Process and on Transition in the 

DRC 2002; The Comprehensive Peace Agreement Between The Government of The Republic of 

The Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Sudan People’s Liberation Army 2005.

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Interim Constitutions and the Invisible Constitution 

177

6.3.  Interim Constitutions and Links 

to the Invisible Constitution

In this section I explore the ways in which interim constitutions can gener-

ate an ‘invisible constitution’ or invisible constitutional features. In studying 

the effects of interim constitutions, I have identified two key ways in which 

interim constitutions generate unwritten constitutional features: first, interim 

constitutions can strongly influence their successor constitutions, through 

methods other than binding (or ‘visible’) pre-commitments. Second, judicial 

decisions in the interim period can respond to and generate invisible constitu-

tional features, some of which may persist in the post-interim era.

This argument reflects a straightforward fact: although interim constitutions 

are (intentionally) temporary, they have permanent effects on ongoing consti-

tutional arrangements. This is not as simple as observing that any law may 

have enduring effects. Rather I contend that because of the circumstances in 

which interim constitutions are adopted, and the kinds of claims that interim 

constitutions make, they are particularly prone to having considerable long-

term effects on constitutional law and culture.

Interim constitutions are typically adopted at critical junctures in a polity. Critical 

junctures have been defined by Giovanni Capoccia and R. Daniel Kelemen as 

‘relatively short periods of time during which there is a substantially heightened 

probability that agents’ choices will affect the outcome of interest’.

41

 Capoccia 

and Kelemen note that in emphasising the ‘probability that actors’ choices will 

affect outcomes decreases after the critical juncture, this definition suggests that 

their choices during the critical juncture trigger a path-dependent process that 

constrains future choices’.

42

 Interim constitutions are typically adopted at times 

that can easily be described as critical junctures, moments in which ‘agents face 

a broader than typical range of feasible options’ and where great change is pos-

sible.

43

 Many of the observations about the potential for interim texts to lead to 

longer-term ‘invisible’ constitutional readings relate to the critical juncture in 

which such temporary texts were adopted.

6.3.1.  The Interim Text Endures through the Permanent Text

In his paper on ‘Temporary Constitutions’, Ozan Varol advances the idea of 

‘burden shifting’:

41 

Giovanni Capoccia and R. Daniel Kelemen, ‘The Study of Critical Junctures: Theory, Narra-

tive, and Counterfactuals in Historical Institutionalism,’ (2007) 59 World Politics 341, 348.

42 

Ibid.

43 

Ibid.

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178