constitutional-law
What type of obligation do governments have in enforcing the Constitution?
<p>I know we have two types of obligation: "Obligation of means" and "Obligation of result".
The Obligation of a government to fulfill of articles in "Constitution" is which of them?</p>

<p>For example in article of 30 in Iranian Constitution:
<strong>"The government must provide all citizens with free-education up to secondary school, and must expand free higher education to the extent required by the country for attaining self-sufficiency."</strong></p>

<p>The Obligation of Government to fulfill this Obligation is which type?</p>

<p>In so far as I can find from a quick search, neither.  Obligation is a matter for private contracts between two or more parties (The Government may be a signatory to the contract, however this is not a constitutional matter).  A Constitution is the rules or "Meta-game" for which government can operate its business.  In theory, only the government can violate constitutional law, so there is no real obligation between it's people.  The government either obeys the rules of it's own operation or it does not.</p>

<p>For example, the United States Constitution is mostly the framework by which the Federal Government operates and interacts with both the States and citizens under it's jurisdiction.  The government operations are laid out in the initial articles and they spell out how the Federal Government may act and interact with each branch and each state government.  The Bill of Rights further limits the Government in it's interaction with the Citizens and what laws it can and cannot pass with respect to the citizens (and importantly spells out that the citizens and states have rights that are not listed in the constitution, while the government does not have any rights unless the constitution says it does.).  Beyond this, the remaining 17 amendments either protect civil liberties of the citizens(13-15, 19, 23, 24, 26) alter government authorities (11, 16, 18, 21) or alter government procedures (12, 17, 20, 22, 25, and 27).  The government is usually not obligated to grant the citizens anything, but is instead limited in what it can do to the citizens in its capacity. </p>

<p>The terminology is not familiar to me, but many states do have constitutionally guaranteed rights to certain standards of economic well being or positive benefits. For example, many of these are codified in the UN Declaration of Human Rights.</p>

<p>The way that these rights are treated legally varies. While a government can always afford (economically) to refrain from doing things that its constitution prohibits it from doing, it is not a foregone conclusion that simply because a constitution states that that people have a right to have something provided that the government is actually capable of doing so.</p>

<p>Sometimes, these affirmative or positive obligations to things that are economically costly are treated by courts as merely "aspirational" goals for the government which are not legally enforceable.</p>

<p>In other circumstances, courts view these obligations as legally binding and order governments to provide these things. For example, a court might order the government to pay for criminal defense lawyers, or to spend more on education to insure that schools are adequate.</p>

<p>Several problems come up when courts conclude that these obligations are binding. </p>

<p>One is how to force the government to comply if it is unwilling or unable within its political constraints to carry out the order.</p>

<p>For example, suppose that the court orders the government to meet its constitutional obligation to provide adequate schools by spending $1 billion on additional school funding, but the government is required by another part of the constitution to get voter approval if it increases taxes, and while the government puts a tax increase to pay for $1 billion in new education funding on the ballot, the voters refuse to approve the tax increase and the constitution doesn't authorize the government to borrow money. Finding a court enforceable remedy in a situation like this is difficult or impossible.</p>

<p>A second problem is to decide what meets the requirement? Does a "free education" mean that the government must pay for books and school supplies, or just teachers and school buildings? What teacher to student ratio meets the requirement? Does a trade school count as a secondary or higher educational institution?</p>

<p>Normally, we give legislative and executive branch officials discretion to answer those questions and expect them to do so in good faith. And, usually courts will not allow people bringing a lawsuit to enforce those rights to win unless the officials who are normally responsible for making those decisions are utterly derelict in their duties. But, there are no bright lines to determine exactly what the government is obligated to do in the face of a vague instruction like the one quoted from the Iranian Constitution.</p>
