Is constitution necessarily a written document? why?
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Constitution is not necessarily a written document
The fundamental law, written or unwritten, that establishes the character of a government by defining the basic principles to which society must conform; by describing the organization of the government and regulation, distribution, and limitations on the functions of different government departments; and by prescribing the extent and manner of the exercise of its sovereign powers.
A legislative charter by which a government or group derives its authority to act.
The concept of a constitution dates to the city-states of ancient Greece. The philosopher Aristotle (384-322 b.c.), in his work Politics, analyzed over 150 Greek constitutions. In that work, he described a constitution as creating the frame upon which the government and laws of a society are built:
In modern Europe, written constitutions came into greater use during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Constitutions such as that of the United States, created in 1787, were influenced by the ancient Greek models. During the twentieth century, an increasing number of countries around the world have concluded that constitutions are a necessary part of democratic or republican government and have adopted their own constitutions.
Many different forms and levels of government may have constitutions. All fifty states of the United States have constitutions, as do many countries including Japan, India, Canada, and Germany. It is also common for nongovernmental organizations and civic groups to have constitutions.
In its ideal form, a constitution emanates from the consent and will of the people that it governs. Besides establishing the institutions of government and the manner in which they function toward each other and toward the people, a constitution may also set forth the rights of the individual and government's responsibility to honor those rights.
Constitutions, whether written or unwritten, typically function as an evolving body of legal custom and opinion. Their evolution generally involves changes in judicial interpretation or in themselves, the latter usually through a process called amendment. Amendment of a constitution is usually designed to be a difficult process in order to give the constitution greater stability. On the other hand, if a constitution is extremely difficult to amend, it may be too inflexible to survive over time.
The ongoing evolutionary nature of constitutions explains why Great Britain may be described as having a constitution even though it does not have a single written document designated as such. England's constitution instead inheres in a body of legal custom and tradition that regulates the relationship between the monarchy, the legislature (Parliament), the judicial system, and common law. Though Great Britain's constitution is in a sense unwritten because it does not originate in a single document, many written laws have been instrumental in its creation, and England in fact has one of the oldest traditions of constitutionalism.
In a truly constitutional form of government, government officials are subject to constitutional rules and provisions and may not violate them without punishment. Such constitutional governments are also called limited governments because the constitution restricts the scope of their power over the people. However, many governments with constitutions do not practice true constitutionalism. The former Soviet Union, for example, created the Stalin constitution in 1936, but that document did not establish a truly constitutional form of government. Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1953, could not be formally penalized or called to account for his actions, no matter how heinous, before any other government official, any court, or the people themselves. The Soviet Constitution also claimed to guarantee freedom of speech, press, and assembly, but in practice the Soviet government continually repressed those who sought to express those freedoms. Constitutions such as that of the former Soviet Union are called nominal constitutions, whereas those that function more truly as prescriptive documents, such as the Constitution of the United States, are called normative constitutions.
In the United States, individual state constitutions must conform to the basic principles of the U.S. Constitution. In other words, they may not violate rights or standards established by the federal, or national, Constitution. However, states are free to grant rights not defined in the U.S. Constitution, so long as doing so does not interfere with other rights drawn from the federal Constitution. For this reason, groups or individuals seeking to file constitutional claims in court are increasingly examining state constitutions for settlement of their grievances. In the issue of school desegregation, for example, groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People began in the 1990s to shift their focus to the state level with the hope of finding greater protection of rights under state constitutions.

参考文献：http://bbs.gter.net/bbs/archiver/tid-513105.html