Colonial Past and Constitutional Momentum: The Case of Iceland

• Main Author: Ágúst Þór Árnason
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: The University of Akureyri 2013
• Subjects: Constitutionalism; Constitutional State; Constitutional Moment; Constitutional Covenant; Constitutional Assembly; National Forum; Colonial Past; Financial Crisis; Bank Crisis; Social sciences (General); H1-99; Human ecology. Anthropogeography; GF1-900; Republic of Iceland; Iceland
• Online Access: https://doaj.org/article/87c342e3c4ae469b99147e88180c0255

In June 2010, nearly two years after the world-wide financial crisis of 2008 hit Iceland, the Icelandic Parliament passed an act on a Constitutional Assembly. Even if no one has succeeded to show any direct connections between the financial crisis and the provisions and the function of the constitution of 1944, loud voices did claim that Icelanders were fortunately faced with a “constitutional moment” and, subsequently, an opportunity to change the nation’s political as well as economic life; something people were ethically obligated to make use of. With no better justified or defined reasons for such an all-inclusive revision, however, it is a worth-while undertaking to take a closer look at the notion of a constitutional moment, and see if that can help us to understand why the Republic of Iceland should abolish its founding constitution without a preceding thorough analysis of its functional failures.