The Constitutional Committee judges whether a governance action is constitutional. Its approval is required for most action types, but it cannot propose anything itself, and DReps and stake pool operators can remove it through a motion of no confidence. The committee has seven seats, and if active membership ever drops below the committee minimum size, governance actions that need its approval stall until new members are seated.
An interim committee appointed by the genesis entities served from the Chang hard fork onward. The first community election in 2025, organized by Intersect and decided by DReps and stake pool operators, filled all seven seats with staggered terms, and the result was ratified on-chain before the interim term ended in September 2025.
Four of those seats expire at the end of epoch 653 on September 6, 2026. The 2026 election chose their successors, and the update-committee action seating them was ratified in epoch 653 with 69.4 percent of DRep stake and 51.2 percent of stake pool stake, just above the 51 percent threshold. The new members serve until epoch 799.
Sources
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- ConstitutionThe document that defines Cardano's governance principles, rules and guardrails. Ratified on-chain in February 2025 and amended through constitution-update governance actions since.View term
- DRepA representative that ada holders delegate their on-chain voting power to, so the DRep votes on governance actions on their behalf; like choosing someone to represent your interests in parliament.View term
- CIP-1694The Cardano Improvement Proposal that defines Cardano's on-chain governance system, introducing DReps, the Constitutional Committee, and formal governance actions.View term
- Governance ActionA formal proposal submitted on-chain for the Cardano community to vote on.View term
- Voting ThresholdsThe set of protocol parameters that define what percentage of votes is required from each governance body (DReps, SPOs) to ratify each governance action type.View term
- Committee Minimum SizeThe protocol parameter that sets the minimum number of seated Constitutional Committee members required for the committee to be operational; below this floor, any governance action that needs committee approval stalls until the seats are refilled.View term