Wiktionary
n. a law or change to an existing law that is added to a governing document.
Wikipedia
A constitutional amendment refers to the modification of the constitution of a nation or state. In many jurisdictions the text of the constitution itself is altered; in others the text is not changed, but the amendments change its effect. The method of modification is typically written into the constitution itself. All of the world's active national constitutions mention amendment procedures.
Most constitutions require that amendments cannot be enacted unless they have passed a special procedure that is more stringent than that required of ordinary legislation. Examples of such special procedures include supermajorities in the legislature, or direct approval by the electorate in a referendum, or even a combination of two or more different special procedures. A referendum to amend the constitution may also be triggered in some jurisdictions by popular initiative.
Australia and Ireland provide examples of constitutions requiring that all amendments are first passed by the legislature before being submitted to the people; in the case of Ireland, a simple majority of those voting at the electorate is all that is required, whereas a more complex set of criteria must be met in Australia (a majority of voters in a majority of states is also necessary). Switzerland has procedure similar to that of Australia.
The special procedures for the amendment of some constitutions have proven to be so exacting that of proposed amendments either few (8 Amendments out of 44 proposed), as in Australia, or none, as in Japan, have been passed over a period of several decades. In contrast, the constitution of the U.S. state of Alabama has been amended over 800 times since 1901.
Usage examples of "constitutional amendment".
The law took the extreme form of a constitutional amendment because it was the only way to get the issue before the people.
There is the Constitutional amendment on abolition to be considered, not to mention .
Now I want a Constitutional amendment abolishing slavery, which will take care of that problem once and for all.
Nothing short of a constitutional amendment can change that, and there are questions regarding the validity of that approach when the issue is contemplated in terms of the “.
About 1990 a constitutional amendment will do away with state lines while retaining the semblance.
It's time Americans fought for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
According to the latest figures I've seen, the number of current peers opposed to the required constitutional amendment gives them at least a fifteen-percent edge, but that number could erode.
We've now passed a Constitutional amendment, which is waiting for the citizenry to approve, that establishes a uniform Criminal Justice Court System in this state so that the affairs of the judiciary can be more orderly structured, so that work loads can be balanced and so that over a period of time there might be an additional factor of equity, which quite often does not exist now because of the wide disparity among the different courts of Georgia.