ABSTRACT
A ‘constitutional moment’,1 to borrow the term coined by the American constitutional lawyer Bruce Ackerman, is a historical rupture in the continuity of a constitutional tradition when the constituted relationships between institutions change without the conventional lawmaking process. So a ‘moment’ understood as an individual episode may, for example, weaken the legislature in relation to the executive, or vice versa. This short chapter focuses on such moments in so far as they can be understood as constituent interventions into constituted institutions. The essay will focus on the role of ‘the people’ as the popular sovereign and its ability to exercise its democratic powers free of the restraints imposed by its constituted competence as the electorate. The argument will be illuminated by a reading of the novel Seeing by the Portuguese Nobel laureate José Saramago.2 Although the novel is well known, I will recapitulate its opening scene here in so far as it is relevant for the main argument of this short essay.3
