Eternity clause

The term eternity clause (Ewigkeitsklausel) refers to article 79(3) of the Grundgesetz (the "Basic Law" or Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany) which prohibits certain amendments to the German Constitution::Amendments to this Basic Law affecting the division of the Federation into Länder, their participation on principle in the legislative process, or the principles laid down in Articles One and 20 shall be inadmissible.By extension, the term eternity clause can also refer to provisions in other constitutions which similarly seek to prohibit certain types of amendments. It can be considered an extreme type of an entrenchment clause -- an entrenchment clause seeks to make it practically difficult to pass a certain type of amendment, but an eternity clause goes further, and it seeks to prohibit such amendments entirely. Thus, the impediment that an eternity clause represents can seemingly only be overcome through extra-legal means such as a revolution or a "coup d'etat" -- although it might also be overcome by a decision of the constitutional authorities (such as the Constitutional Court) to willingly disregard it, or to interpret it so weakly as to render it to be inactive in practice.

Or, from another point of view, an eternity clause could be superseded or supplanted by a Constitutional Convention that writes a whole new Constitution, that when ratified by the people in an election or by their states (Länder in the German case), replaces the old Consitution. A similar thing happened in America when the older Articles of Confederation was conpletely replaced by the newer Constitution of the United States. This was done by the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, and the new Constitution was ratified by all 13 of the existing states,