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An organic law or fundamental law is a law or system of laws which forms the foundation of a government, corporation or other organization's body of rules. A constitution is a particular form of organic law for a sovereign state.

Contents 1 Organic laws of the United States 2 Organic laws in France 3 References 4 See also

[edit] Organic laws of the United States

The organic laws of the United States of America are included in the U.S. Code. These documents include the United States Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Northwest Ordinance, and the U.S. Constitution.^[1] These documents comprise the very first part of the United States Code, wherein lies the collected statutes of the United States.[1]

[edit] Organic laws in France

Under the current Constitution of France, organic laws are a short, fixed list of statutes (as of 2005, there are about 30 of them), whose existence is provisioned by the text of the Constitution itself. Those special statutes are of constitutional scope according to the framing of the French Constitution (especially its preambles), and also have constitutional force. This means that they overrule ordinary statutes, despite their being enacted by the Parliament of France in the same way — except that the Constitutional Council of France is unconditionally consulted before any organic law is enacted.

This mechanism allows the French Constitution to provide flexibility where needed. Dispositions such as the legislative process for enacting the budgets of the French state and French social security, as well as the practical procedures for the various elections, are delegated to organic laws, which tends to make the constitution itself less prone to change.

An important category of organic laws are budget system laws.

[edit] References

• http://edstudents.angelfire.com/papers/ORGANIC_LAW.pdf
• Drafting Budget System Laws -- IMF Technical Guidance Note, Ian Lienert and Israel Fainboim, IMF, 2007

[edit] See also

• Basic Law
• Organic statute
• Organic Laws of Oregon