nonconstitutional
- adjective
- /ˌnɒnˌkɒnstɪˈtjuːʃənl/
- Formal
- Certain laws may be considered nonconstitutional if they violate the principles set out in the nation's founding documents.
Examples
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For example, the Court has applied the act of state doctrine to the states as a judicially created, nonconstitutional rule that is not compelled by the Constitution (n51) and is subject to congressional modification.
Academic text (2001) -
Meanwhile, the Congress, functioning both as a sitting congress and a constituent assembly, had little time or attention for nonconstitutional matters.
Academic text (1998) -
The findings for leadership entry indicate that a nonconstitutional leader increases the chances of civil war but decreases the chances of violence from above.
Academic text (1996) -
Instead, the Court's response was essentially to cloud the distinction between constitutional requirements and nonconstitutional protective measures.
Academic text (2001) -
In addition to the FSE and FEF, certain nonconstitutional measures have been adopted in search of deficit reduction.
Academic text (1998) -
The rationale Quarles gave, however, was that the Miranda rules were nonconstitutional rules subject to modification by the court.
Academic text (2001) -
She reasons that the President's authority to delegate is both recognized and consistent with the broader body of (nonconstitutional) law.
Academic text (2016) -
This last qualification helps explain why groups that favor judicial activism also typically favor constitutionalizing large areas of law: constitutional decisions are more difficult for legislatures to trump than nonconstitutional decisions.
Academic text (1997) -
The inability to separate constitutional law from nonconstitutional moral principles does indeed create a kind of crisis for standard forms of liberal constitutionalism, but it does not disadvantage proponents of constitutional protection for gay marriage.
Academic text (2008) -
The majority in Dickerson viewed these statements not as "proving that Miranda is a nonconstitutional decision" but rather that "unreasonable searches under the Fourth Amendment are different from unwarned interrogation under the Fifth Amendment."
Academic text (2001)
Synonyms
Does not follow the country's highest law
That goes against the country's constitution or rules for government
Antonyms
How Constitutional
Surface Forms
Morphology
nonconstitutional = constitutional (transparent) = non + constitution + al
The adjective is a simple negation formed by productive prefix 'non-' attached to the adjective 'constitutional', so the meaning is directly derivable.
Etymology
Nonconstitutional starts with non- meaning 'not' and ends with constitutional, from constitution, the name for a country's basic rules that 'set up' its government. So, something nonconstitutional is 'not allowed by' or 'not part of' those basic rules.