Constitutional crisis - Definition and Overview

A constitutional crisis is a situation in which separate factions within a government disagree about the extent to which each of these factions hold sovereignty; as such, it is distinct from a rebellion, in which factions outside of a government challenge that government's sovereignty.

A constitutional crisis can lead to government paralysis, collapse, or civil war.

Famous Constitutional Crises

• The secession of the southern US states prior to the American Civil War.

• The King-Byng Affair of 1926 in Canada where Governor General Byng refused a request by Prime Minister Mackenzie King that Parliament be dissolved and new elections called. Instead, Byng dismissed King and appointed Arthur Meighen as Prime Minister.

• The Watergate scandal of 1973-74 in the United States, in which President Richard Nixon refused to relinquish secret recordings of conversations in the Oval Office which were believed to have demonstrated his knowledge and involvement in the affair. After the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Nixon could not rely on executive privilege to withhold the tapes, he resigned, becoming the nation's first President to do so. It also resulted in the elevation of Vice-President Gerald Ford to the office of President, whereupon he became the nation's first officially unelected President.

• The parliamentary dispute of 1975 in Australia that saw Prime Minister Gough Whitlam fired by the nation's normally apolitical Governor General.

• The constitutional crisis of 1993 in Russia, a conflict between Russian President Boris Yeltsin and the Russian parliament which resulted in a military siege of the parliament building and street fighting which claimed 187 lives.

• U.S. President Bill Clinton was involved in two interrelated constitutional crises. In 1994, a civil lawsuit was brought against Clinton by Paula Jones, who alleged that Clinton sexually harrassed her in 1991 when he was Governor of Arkansas. Clinton argued that, as a sitting President, any litigation against him should be stayed until he left office. The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed, holding that a sitting President-defendant could be deposed and litigated against as any other citizen. Jones' lawyers promptly deposed Clinton, confronting him with evidence of an extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky, which he denied. That led directly to the impeachment of Clinton in 1998 by the United States House of Representatives on charges, among other things, perjury and obstruction of justice. Clinton was tried by the U.S. Senate and acquitted in 1999, becoming only the second President to be impeached and tried.

• The succession crisis of 2002 in Argentina. Following a massive economic meltdown, Argentina's president resigned, followed by a mass of cabinet members, leading five different men to reluctantly assume the presidency for extremely brief periods over the course of three weeks.