Do you know which are the countries with the oldest written constitutions in the world? No? Come with me and read Insider Monkey’s latest article about this topic. This article was really edifying for me, it was great to read it. Constitutions have been around for a very long time – the first known constitution belongs to the Sumerians and dates back to the 2300 BC. The first written constitution that we have physical evidence of, is from 2050 BC and it’s called the Code of Ur-Nammu of Ur.
There have been several constitutions from roughly the same era that we know of, for example, the code of Hammurabi of Babylonia and the Hittite code. Not all constitutions aided the formation of a just society, however. The instance of the barbarian laws instituted in 621 BC by the Draco, the first recorded legislator of Athens, spring to mind. These laws were so unnecessarily harsh that they resulted in the formation of a unique word that we are all very familiar with – draconian. Of course, we still tend to trip up when it comes to law-making – though laws are much more relaxed nowadays, you can still be punished for the strangest things.
Now without a further ado let’s see what Insider Monkey has investigated for us. We have picked four countries with the oldest written constitutions in the world from their list.
The first one is Tonga (1875). The Tongan constitution which governs the land of Tonga was authorized by the then King, George Tupou I on 4th November 1875. It is also commemorated every year in the state as “Tonga’s Constitution Day”. The next country is Luxembourg (1868). The constitution of the modern-day state of Luxembourg was adopted by the nation on 17th October 1868. It replaced the earlier original constitution of 1841 but is legally considered to be a sweeping amendment of the same. The third one is Argentina (1853). The Argentinian constitution has undergone a series of changes but was first introduced on the 1st of May, 1853. At last, but not least, let’s check Denmark (1849), one of my favorite countries. Though the official constitution of Denmark in use today was enforced in 1953, it’s a mere amended version of the original that was put into place on 5th June 1849.
For any further useful information, read Insider Monkey’s article about 10 countries with the oldest written constitutions in the world
