Constitutions

The California Supreme Court decision upholding Proposition 8's same-sex marriage ban illuminated the history and oddities of the state Constitution, provoking renewed discussion about whether voters can too easily amend it. Whereas the U.S. Constitution has been amended only 27 times, California's top legal document has been altered more than 500 times, often by voter initiative. The state's Constitution is the third longest in the world, exceeded only by those of India and Alabama.

Army-ruled Myanmar has finished writing a new constitution, to be put to a May referendum, which gives the military the "leading political role," official media said Tuesday. "I hereby declare that the draft of the state constitution has been approved by this commission," Chief Justice U Aung Toe, chairman of the military-appointed drafting commission, was quoted as saying on state radio and television.

Myanmar's ruling generals announced Thursday that a new constitution viewed by critics as a pro-government sham had been overwhelming approved by voters. The commission in charge of the Saturday referendum said 92.4% of voters approved the constitution, state-run media reported. The pro-democracy opposition says the new constitution will enshrine military rule.

The "Yes on the EU" bus rolled into town blaring a foot-stomping "Galway Girl" from its megaphone one afternoon last week, but what it got was a whole lot of no. An Irishman has always been a hard sell, and never more so than when issues of sovereignty are at stake. "People died for your freedom," declares one of the signs that have popped up in this agricultural town as Ireland prepares to vote June 12 on the European Union's new constitution. "Don't throw it away."

Voters overwhelmingly approved a new constitution Sunday that will concentrate power in the hands of socialist President Rafael Correa, advance his reformist agenda and enable him to remain in office until 2017, exit polls indicated. The constitution was drafted last summer by a special congress convened by Correa, who was elected in a 2006 landslide by voters exasperated by this country's chronic corruption, political instability and ineffectual lawmakers.

Miss Constitution had yellow curls that bounced down her back, wide blue eyes and a sweet if faltering singing voice. She shimmied barefoot, donned a swimsuit in freezing temperatures and spoke plausibly about the responsibilities of the Russian state. When her moment of glory came, Masha Fyodorova was draped in the Russian flag and handed the keys to a brand-new, pink-and-orange Mini Cooper.

California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown asked the state Supreme Court on Friday to invalidate the voter-approved ban on gay marriage, declaring that "the amendment process cannot be used to extinguish fundamental constitutional rights without compelling justification." Brown's argument on Proposition 8, contained in an 111-page brief filed at the last possible moment before the court's deadline, surprised many legal experts.

Ecuador's Congress approved holding a referendum on whether to create an assembly to rewrite the constitution, bowing to demands by leftist President Rafael Correa, who is seeking to weaken traditional political parties. Correa blames the parties for the Andean nation's problems. He called on Ecuadoreans "to fulfill their role in history, crushing the political mafias at the ballot boxes." Ecuador has been marked by political instability, with seven presidents in the last decade.

In this Himalayan nation, the man who would be king probably is the man who would be in jail if many of his subjects had their way. Crown Prince Paras is heir to the throne in the world's only Hindu-majority kingdom. But he is also the bad boy of the royal family, a ne'er-do-well whose careless driving killed a popular singer, whose drunken brawls are well-known and whose security detail had an entire wedding party detained for questioning after the prince's car hit their bus.

Amid anemic turnout, Egyptians voted Monday on a package of constitutional amendments in a referendum boycotted by opposition groups and criticized by human rights organizations and the U.S. government. Despite a push by President Hosni Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party to get out the vote, polling stations throughout Cairo saw only a trickle of voters -- many of them party members or civil servants bused in from work.