The Irrelevance of the Netherlands Constitution, and the Impossibility of Changing It

Abstract

Although the bicentennial anniversary of the Netherlands Constitution was exuberantly celebrated in 2014, the document itself appears to be of increasingly little practical and symbolic value. Many efforts have been made over the past two decades to change this, but thus far none of these has been successful. This article aims to explain the apparent irrelevance of the Netherlands Constitution, and it probes into the feasibility of changing this situation.