- How, when, and by whom was this constitution created and adopted?
- When did this constitution take effect?
- Who is governed by this constitution?
- What kind of government – national or federal or something else – does this constitution create?
- If federal, what are the federation’s components, and how do they relate to the central government? What is the central government, and how does it relate to its components?
- Whether national or federal, what is the central government’s structure? What institutions does it include? What relationships exist among these institutions?
- Who makes the laws under the constitution?
- Who enforces the laws under the constitution?
- Who interprets the laws under the constitution?
- What arrangements does the constitution make for individual rights and liberties? If there are clauses protecting rights and liberties, what form do they take? What purposes do these clauses serve in the constitutional system? Can they be enforced, by whom, and against whom or what?
- How can the constitutional system change? Does it include a process for formal constitutional change, such as a method of amending or rewriting the constitution? How does that process work? What is the relationship of the people governed to that process of formal constitutional change?
- Who interprets the constitution to change its meaning and application? If so, to which institution or officials does the constitution assign this function? How does it work?
- Given that a constitution is a skeleton for a constitutional and political system, what other parts of that system are not authorized by or incorporated into a constitution but exist within it anyway and help to make it work?
- Is there a procedure for exercising the constituent power – the power to constitute or reconstitute a constitutional system – if the constitution seems to need repair or the constitutional system is breaking down? If so, how does it work? Who holds the power to do so?
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