A flexible constitution is characterised to be unstable and with no guarantee of performance. The process of amendment being simple, it is liable to be seriously affected by ever-changing popular passion and popular passion is devoid of reason as it depends upon emotion.
Emotion chokes reason and strangulates thought and it offers a psychological opportunity to the demagogue to play upon it and gain his end.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Again, the constitution may be changed not to meet the exigencies of the time, but to satisfy the whims of the political majority. As Sidgwick says, “Valuable rules and institutions may be abolished in a transient gust of unpopularity and lose the stability given by antiquity and unbroken customs.” Flexible constitution therefore, is not suited to a country where the people have insufficient political training.
It is suitable only for a people whose political training has been carried to a high degree of perfection. “In that training two elements would be of vital consequence to the safety of the system: first, an accurate understanding of their political rights and duties, general among the citizens; second, sleepless vigilance to detect violations of the constitution, and the utmost promptness and energy to resist and punish them.”
Image Source: constitutionnet.org
The rights of the people are liable to be encroached upon under a flexible constitution where the citizens are not vigilant.
A flexible constitution has also been criticised as the “plaything of judicial tribunals.” Again, there is a popular belief that a flexible constitution vests wide powers and a greater discretion in public servants. Finally, it is argued that a flexible constitution is not suited to democracies.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
It has greater affinity for aristocratic societies. “The masses in a democracy are suspicious, if not hostile, to constitutional prescriptions which have not been formally enacted but which rest mainly upon custom and usage,” and all these customs and usages had been set by the aristocracy of the past.