A constitution is something prior to a government, and a government is only the creature of a constitution. A constitution is not the act of the government, but that of the people who constitute a government, and a government without a constitution is a power without rights. (1) The Thomas Paine Constitution is the system of laws, customs and conventions that define the composition and power of the organs of state and regulate the relations of the various organs of state with each other and with the private citizen. (2) According to Helen Fenwick and Govin Phillipson, the purpose of a constitution is to control the power of the state and to ensure that this power derives from a legitimate source. (3) There are many ways to clarify the types of constitutions, but the most significant are monarch or republican, unitary or federal, written or unwritten. This last clarification has raised wide debates for many centuries and has been discussed by eminent scholars, from Walter Bagehot to Vernon Bogdanor. This essay will evaluate the major strengths and weaknesses of both, viz. a constitution as a single document, the doctrine of separation of powers, flexibility and entrenchment of written and unwritten constitutions First, a written constitution is a single codified document that includes the rules of government of a country as well as the rights, duties and freedoms of individuals within the country. However, an unwritten constitution, also called an uncodified constitution, is diversified into different legislative acts, customs and political conventions. There are only three countries in the world that have an unwritten constitution, including New Zealand, Israel and the United Kingdom. Usually, a constitution can be written after a good… middle of paper… phew in both Houses of Parliament and gets a three-fifths majority (17). Professor John McEldowney(16) writes that the advantage of the entrenchment of the written constitution is that it limits the powers of the government to interfere in the different branches of government, namely the executive, the legislative and the judiciary. Furthermore, the entrenchment constitution, unlike the flexible unwritten constitution, provides a rational approach to the social world in the way that it does not depend on the government of the day. (18) However, Anthony Bradley and Ewing have a more positive view towards the flexible constitution. The unwritten constitution was based on political principles rather than on legal rules established by the written constitution. (19) This view can be demonstrated by the article on capital punishment in the US Constitution, which violates fundamental human rights.