Icelandic Constitution of 1944

The independence charter from Denmark, and the crowd sourced reform attempt.

Overview

Adopted by referendum and effective June 17, 1944, the Icelandic Constitution took the 1874 Danish granted text with 1920 amendments and made it republican, creating a parliamentary republic with a mostly ceremonial president. Its 2010 2013 moment of fame came from the post crash crowd sourced constitutional process, a nationally elected assembly and forum whose draft bill proposed natural resources public ownership and equal weight per vote, but parliament never enacted it. The episode is studied as direct democracy constitutionalism. The existing text, with Article 79 rights clause and others, still governs.