A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed.According to Thomas Paine’s definition towards the term ‘’constitution’’,he describes constitution as an antecedent to government,which is the creature of a constitution,and the constitution is not the act of it’s government,but the people themselves constituting the government.A constitution may be written or unwritten.As for the definition of written constitution,it is a formal document defining the nature of the constitutional settlement,the rules that govern the political system and the rights of citizens and government in a codified form whereas uncodified constitution is a type of constitution where the fundamental rules of government take the form of customs, usage, precedent and a variety of statutes and legal instruments.The examples of written constitution are Malaysia Federal Constitution and American Constitution while examples of unwritten constitution include United Kingdom Constitution,New Zealand Constitution and Israel Constitution.There are differences distinguished between a written and an unwritten constitution.
Firstly,written constitution and unwritten constitution differ in the aspect of the source and originality.Written constitution or codified constitution is essentially one which is set down formally in a document.The most obvious and common example of this is the American Constitution, brought into effect in year 1787,which is written down on a piece of parchment and lays down the foundation of American citizens’ rights as well as the powers of government.In other means, written constitution can be found in a single written source.This also can be applied to the Malaysian Federal Constitution in which you can find them in a single statute named the Federal Constitution or ‘’Perlembagaan Malaysia’’