The Constitution of the Kingdom of the Netherlands of 24 August 1815 () is one of two fundamental documents governing the Kingdom of the NetherlandsArticle 5 of the Statute for the Kingdom of the Netherlands as well as the fundamental law of the Netherlands proper (the territory of the Kingdom mainly situated in Europe). The Kingdom of the Netherlands also includes Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten: there is an overarching instrument of the entire kingdom that has constitution characteristics: the Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Sint Maarten is the only country in the Kingdom of the Netherlands that has a constitutional court to govern the Sint Maarten legislature.
The constitution of the Netherlands is only applicable to the Netherlands proper, i.e. the territory in Europe and its public bodies of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, the latter three since 2010 special municipalities, in the Caribbean, except when the Charter does not cover a certain legal subject. It is generally seen as directly derived from the one issued in 1815, constituting a constitutional monarchy; it is the third oldest constitution still in use worldwide. A revision in 1848 instituted a system of parliamentary democracy. In 1983, the most recent major revision of the Constitution of the Netherlands was undertaken, almost fully rewriting the text and adding new civil rights.
The text is sober, devoid of legal or political doctrine and includes a bill of rights. It prohibits the judiciary from testing laws and treaties against the constitution, as this is considered a prerogative of the legislature. There is no constitutional court in the Netherlands.
History
The first constitution of the Netherlands as a whole, in the sense of a fundamental law which applied to all its provinces and cities, is the 1579 constitution, which established the confederal Dutch Republic. The constitution was empowered by the Union of Utrecht, thus by treaty. Article XIII of the treaty granted each inhabitant of the Republic freedom of conscience.
After the French invasion of 1795, the Batavian Republic was proclaimed. On 31 January 1795 it issued a bill of rights, the . The newly-established National Assembly was tasked with drafting a constitution, the first of the Netherlands in the modern formal sense. Its members disagreed about the extent of suffrage and about whether to organise the republic as a federal or unitary state. A compromised constitution was rejected in a referendum, and a coup d'état was carried out by those favouring a unitary state with a powerful central government, similar to that of the revolutionary French First Republic. The Constitution for the Batavian People was enacted after it received support from an overwhelming majority in another April 1798 referendum. Only those who swore allegiance to the coup were allowed to vote. The constitution outlined the organisation of the national government, and it enshrined equality between citizens and included civil rights such as freedom of speech, assembly, and religion. The Napoleonic Kingdom of Holland, a constitutional monarchy, was established by the on 7 August 1806. In 1810 the kingdom was annexed by the French Empire.
Establishment of the Kingdom of the Netherlands After the French troops were driven out by Russian Cossacks, the new Sovereign Principality of the United Netherlands was established by the constitution of 29 March 1814, the Grondwet van den Staat der Verëenigde Nederlanden. William VI of Orange was instated on 2 December 1813 as "Sovereign Prince" by acclamation, but and only accepted "under the safeguard of a free constitution, assuring your freedom against possible future abuses." He first appointed 600 men of good standing as electors (Assembly of Notables) and these approved the constitution, written by a commission headed by Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp. On 24 August 1815 William — since 16 March King William I of the Netherlands — having proclaimed himself King of the larger United Netherlands six days earlier, issued the first version of the current constitution, the or , establishing the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now expanding his realm with the territory of the present state of Belgium, which would again secede from it in 1830. It included a limited unentrenched bill of rights, with freedom of religion, the principle of habeas corpus, the right of petition and freedom of the press as its main points. In the Treaty of London of 1814 the Allies ordered that the original Dutch state would devise a new constitution. It was approved by the new States General (consisting of 55 members) of the Northern Netherlands, but rejected by the majority of appointed electors (796 against 527) of the Southern Netherlands. However, 126 appointed members indicated that they objected to the new constitution because they believed in stronger provisions for freedom of religion. Since freedom of religion was guaranteed under the Treaty of Vienna, their votes and abstaining votes were counted in support of the new constitution instead. This infamous "Hollandic Arithmetic" left William feeling justified in his proclamation of the new kingdom.
Regarding the government's political structure, the 1815 constitution did not diverge much from the situation during the Republic: the 110 members of House of Representatives (lower house) of the States General, the "Second Chamber" as it is still called, were still appointed by the States-Provincial (for three years; each year a third was replaced), who themselves were filled with nobility members or appointed by the city councils, just like under the ancien régime. However, the new constitution provided for some rural delegates, elected through electoral colleges and appointed to all States-Provincial (first only true for Friesland) and the city councils. The electoral colleges, in turn, were elected by a select group of male citizens of good standing and paying a certain amount of taxes. Thus, a modicum of democracy was indirectly introduced into the system. Generally, however, the administration was monarchical: the King had control over appointments to the Senate, also known as the "First Chamber" and mockingly referred to as the . In 1840, when a new revision was made necessary by the independence of Belgium, a first step to a more parliamentary system was taken by the introduction of penal ministerial responsibility.
Constitutional Reform of 1848
The constitution as it was revised on 11 October 1848 is often described as the original of the version still in force today. Under pressure from the Revolutions of 1848 in surrounding countries, King William II accepted the introduction of full ministerial responsibility in the constitution, leading to a system of parliamentary democracy, with the House of Representatives directly elected by the voters within a system of single-winner electoral districts. Parliament was accorded the right to amend government bills and to hold investigative hearings. The States-Provincial, themselves elected by voters, appointed by majorities for each province the members of the Senate from a select group of upper class citizens. A commission chaired by Johan Rudolph Thorbecke was appointed to draft the new proposed constitution, which was finished on 19 June. Suffrage was expanded (though still limited to census suffrage), as was the bill of rights with the freedom of assembly, the privacy of correspondence, freedom of ecclesiastical organisation and the freedom of education.
Expansion of suffrage
In 1884 there was a minor revision. In 1887 the census suffrage system was replaced by one based on minimal wealth and education, which allowed an ever-growing share of the male population to be given the right to vote; therefore this provision was at the time nicknamed the "caoutchouc-article". The election interval for the House of Representatives was changed from two (with half of it replaced) to four years (with full a replacement of now hundred members). Eligibility for the Senate was broadened. Any penal measure not based on formal law was prohibited.
In 1917, which was, as in 1848, influenced by the tense international situation, universal manhood suffrage was introduced combined with a system of proportional representation to elect the House of Representatives, the States-Provincial and the municipality councils. The Senate continued to be elected by the States-Provincial, but now also employing a system of proportional representation, no longer by majorities per province. The Christian democratic parties agreed to universal manhood suffrage in exchange for a complete constitutional equality in state funding between public and denominational schools, thus ending the school struggle. By the revision of 1922 universal suffrage was explicitly adopted in the constitution, after it had already been introduced by law in 1919. Each three years, half of the members of the Senate were to be elected by the States-Provincial for a period of six years, using a system of proportional representation.
Later revisions In 1938 there was a minor revision, introducing some elements of the then fashionable corporatism by giving a constitutional base to public bodies regulating sectors of the economy. A proposal to make it possible to impeach "revolutionary" members of representative bodies, directed against communists and fascists, failed to get a two-thirds majority.
After World War II in 1946 a revision failed attempting to simplify the revisional procedure. However, a change was accepted allowing to send conscripts to the colonial war in the Dutch East Indies. In the revision of 1948 a complete new chapter was added to facilitate the incorporation of the new state of Indonesia within the Kingdom under the Netherlands-Indonesia Union. Soon it would become irrelevant as Indonesia severed all ties with the Netherlands in 1954. The revision also created the office of secretary of state, a kind of junior minister but one fully subordinate to a certain minister. In 1953 new articles were introduced concerning international relations, as the Netherlands was abandoning its old policy of strict neutrality. In the revision of 1956 the constitution was changed to accommodate the full independence of Indonesia. The number of members of the House of Representatives members was brought up to 150, of Senate members to 75. The revision of 1963 accommodated the loss of Dutch New Guinea to Indonesia. The voting age was lowered from 23 to 21. In 1972 there was a minor revision; the main change was a lowering of the voting age to 18.
In 1983 the constitution was almost entirely rewritten. Many articles were abolished. Social rights were included, most articles were reformulated (the main exception being article 23 about the still sensitive freedom of education) using a new uniform legal terminology and their sequence was changed. The bill of rights was expanded with a prohibition of discrimination, a prohibition of the death penalty, a general freedom of expression, the freedom of demonstration and a general right to privacy.
In 1987 there was a minor revision. In the revision of 1995 the introduction of a professional army, replacing the conscript army, was regulated. In the revision of 1999 a proposal to introduce an advisory referendum was rejected by the Senate. After a minor revision in 2002, the last changes were made in 2005; a proposal to introduce an elected mayor was rejected by the Senate.
Revision