Talk:Constitution of Denmark

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Wrong date[edit]

the reference to wikisource is fucked. its supposed to be june but the article is called something with july. someone with sparetime please fix this

Good spotted. Should be corrected now. (you can actually just do this stuff yourself btw) Twthmoses 23:51, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Blog[edit]

The is an external link to a very right wing American analyzing the danish constitution from his own political point of view. I don't think that is very usefull to link. It is most certainly has no NPOV.

For instance one major critical point of his is that the constitution requires the government to ensure that no danish starves, and requires the government to protect the general welfare of the people. He considers that a critical weakness because "it encourages a big state".

Should the link stay? Can I write the authors political stand point in the link, to warn any who might wish to follow it? carewolf 21:49 23 January 2007 (UTC).

I've removed it. Political blogs are irrelevant here. Valentinian T / C 23:00, 7 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Constitution before 1849[edit]

If I remember my history right Frederik III introduced the first danish constitution in 1660. It was just not a democratic constitution, but one that introduced absolutism. It might be worth mentioning. Also just to clear up that constitutions don't need always be democratic. carewolf 21:58 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I found this on [1]:

En forfatning er ikke så uundværlig for en nations sammenhold, som man skulle tro. England har f.eks. ikke nogen grundlov, men dog et meget velfungerende demokrati, der hviler på gammel hævd. Enevældige konger i Europa behøvede heller ingen forfatning. Magten og retten til fordeling af den strålede fra himlen ned til kongen og sikrede hans enevælde. Det eneste land i Europa, som havde en skreven enevældig forfatning, var i øvrigt Danmark med kongeloven af 1665.

It seems Lex Regia was one of the first constitutions in Europe, but one that granted the king absolute power. Carewolf 12:36, 8 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The Lex Regia could be considered a constitution. I once heard something about Savoy being Europe's only other truly absolutist entity apart from Denmark and Norway, but I've never heard about a written document like the Lex Regia in that country. Interestingly, the contents of the Lex Regia were a secret for many years, but the text was published in 1709. [2] But when it comes to documents regulating the relationship between monarch and state, the Magna Carta is much older. Valentinian T / C 23:06, 7 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Changes[edit]

I am not sure the article refers to "changes" correctly. As I understand it, the Danish Constitution, when it was "changed", was actually replaced, that is, a new constitution replaced an existing constitution. For comparison, the US Constitution actually "changes"; that is, amendments are made to the existing constitution, and the original constitution is NOT replaced. But would someone more experienced with the subject matter please clarify? I would like to contribute to the article. Thanks. // // Mark Renier (talk) 13:34, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Technically it is being replaced every time a change is made. However from some of the names of the different constitutions it seems that the it has varied how the changes have been percieved. For example the constitution of 1866 was called the "Revised Constitution of June 5th 1849". The same in 1920 where the official name of the constitution was "The Constitution of Denmark of June 5th 1915 with amendments of September 10th 1920". The constitutions resulting from the other two changes actually changed the year of the constitutions as well as they were called respectively "The Constituion of June 5th 1915" and "The Constitution of June 5th 1953". I am not sure what the constitution will be called after this most recent change though. --Saddhiyama (talk) 17:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What I hear you saying is that the official names of the documents might use the term "revised" even though they are in fact a completely new constitution, such that the replaced constitution is actually no longer used. The Danish government can still operate without having to reference those older constitutions. Is that correct? Thanks for helping to clear this up! // Mark Renier (talk) 09:39, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but it is important to stress the fact that the main corpus of the current constitution is still the one from 1849. Each time a change has been made the old constitution has generally just been copied with the changes added, there has been no cases where it has been completely rewritten. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:52, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's the distinction that I was trying to understand. Someone told me once that the US Constitution was the oldest in the world. I wanted to compare that assertion with Denmark, and also Japan, which have claim to the oldest lines of royalty in the world. The difference between the two constitutions is that the US Constitution is still the same original constitution from 1787, and that it has been amended with additional provisions during its lifetime. In contrast, the Danish constitution is replaced instead of amended. I see that this most recently occurred in 1953. I understand that there is history behind it that links it to previous constitutions, just as the US Constitution is related to the Articles of Confederation from 1781. For this comparison purpose, both are is a completely new constitutions where an earlier version was deprecated when a new one is approved. The United States Constitution article does not assert that it was created in 1781. This article therefore cannot assert that the current Danish constitution dates from 1849, isn't that correct? // Mark Renier (talk) 10:30, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I guess you are right, as the present Constitution is from 1953 (even though two-thirds of it is exactly the same wording as the original 1849 constitution). So the intro should be reworded to state that it is from 1953. Though I do think that it is also important to stress the connections to 1849 in the intro, as, after all, the present democracy of Denmark was instituted in 1848-1849. Out of personal interest, what sort of comparison is it you are trying to make regarding the Danish and Japanese royal houses and the constitution of the USA? --Saddhiyama (talk) 12:37, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have any personal agenda; I was just following articles of interest to me. I was surprised to hear that Japan "also" has a long line of royalty. My article edits usually come only by following such items. My train of thought in this case was something like: Oldest Constitution? US. Oldest flag? DK. Oldest royalty? DK. DK government? Folketinget. Visit. Photo. 4 constitutions? Research. Japan? Research. etc. Kinda haphazard, but there is a thread there, somewhere. :) // Mark Renier (talk) 09:24, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have made some changes based on this discussion; please review them! Thanks again. // Mark Renier (talk) 11:03, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good. It all seems to be correct, and the layout changes (especially giving the text on the absolute monarchy its own section) works fine. Nice work! --Saddhiyama (talk) 11:43, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Translating from Danish[edit]

Hi,

So tonight I translated the Danish version of the article and incorporated it into the body of the text. To make it more coherent, I edited the layout and moved some of the sections around, e.g. grouping some material under "Additional Details". Feel free to move things around if it makes more sense in other ways.Morten Isaksen (talk) 21:45, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

EU and the question of national sovereignity[edit]

The section on National Sovereignity is flawed, or at the very least so simplified to be meaningless. I tried in vain to formulate something short and precise, but here are my thoughts. Hopefully someone can help distill these points into a coherent and usefull section...

The trial against the prime minister was probably the only time the Danish supreme court acted as an actual constitutional court, and it raised several issues:

The first was about the transfer of unspecified amounts of sovereignity. The relevant part of §20 reads (from wikisource - I don't think the translation is very precise, so some of the subtleties essential to the trial are lost, but it will have to do): "Powers vested in the authorities of the Realm under this Constitutional Act may, to such extent as shall be provided by statute, be delegated to international authorities set up by mutual agreement with other states for the promotion of international rules of law and cooperation."

The supreme court ruled that this could only be interpreted in such a way, that any transfer of sovereignity had to be "positively defined". They specifically ruled, that §20 does not allow the international organisation to define the extent of its authority itself.

The question then becomes wether or not the treaty has clearly defined the areas and extent of the sovereignity transferred to the EU. The claim was, that a specific article (235?) of the treaty, allowed for the EU to decide - without a new treaty, to include additional areas under their jurisdiction. This was the core issue of the trial: Was the amount of sovereignity clearly defined or not. It was shown that the article in question had possibly been used in a way that would violate §20 in the past, but the court ruled that it refused to consider usage of the article before the treaty (personally I am unable to comprehend the legalese regarding this issue, and it seems crazy to me to not consider how laws interact - but I am not a lawyer). My understanding is, that the issue was pretty much dismissed by the court as irrelevant.

Another issue was about mutual agreement with other states. The court ruled that this prohibits the transfer of sovereignity to a degree that Denmark ceases to be a sovereign state (then there would no longer be a mutual agreement between states). The court ruled that this was not the case though.

The last important issue as far as I know, was wether or not the treaty violated the constitutionally guaranteed democracy in Denmark. It was ruled that this was not the case, and that section two of §20 is a safeguard against this (it requires 5/6 of the parliamentary votes OR a referendum).

It should be noted that the supreme court ruling was unanimous. Given the fact that the supreme court justices at the time (this was changed in 1999) were appointed by the government, the independence of the supreme court (and indeed the entire judicial system at the time) can be questioned though (which was the exact reason for the reform of 1999). That said, the lax separation of powers compared to several other countries, is probably an issue for another article.

I don't know how to best rewrite the current section. While I don't think it should become overly long, it is probably the only real constitutional issue since at least '53 - if not much earlier, since the changes in '53 are rather minor. And as far as I know, it is the only time the supreme court has interpreted the constitution in Denmark (unlike many countries, it isn't actually a court to protect/interpret the constituion, but merely the last appelate court). All in all, the trial in question is pretty important to an article about the Danish constitution...

Links: Danish text of the constitution - http://grundloven.dk/ Danish press release from the supreme court + full text of the ruling - http://www.eu-oplysningen.dk/dkeu/dk/grundlov/grundlovssagen/ 82.180.28.162 (talk) 01:39, 24 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The only time the Danish Supreme court has acted as a traditional constitutional court, that is a court that has judicial review, was in the Tvindlaw ruling, which effectively annulled a law that had been passed by the Folketing. But I am not quite sure I follow you here, what is your point, your specific problem with the article as it is?. Remember that any claims added to the article will have to be based on reliable secondary sources, not on personal interpretation of primary sources. --Saddhiyama (talk) 10:14, 24 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Changes to the constitution[edit]

Would some please clarify the statement in the section "Changes to the constitution", please? As written, it suggests that the constitution can be changed even if there is a 60% vote against the proposal. Is that really true? Or should is say "passed by a majority of at least a 40% turn-out of eligible voters"? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 18:16, 5 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • A clearer explanation is given at Elections in Denmark#Referendums. I have revised this article to match. (To pass, a proposal must not only have a majority of those voting but also have the support of at least 40% of the electorate.) --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:22, 6 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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