Constitutional democracy in the context of "Legal entity"

The National Transitional Council (NTC) was a transitional government established in the 2011 Libyan civil war. After rebel forces overthrew the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya of Muammar Gaddafi in August 2011, the NTC governed Libya for a further ten months after the end of the war, holding elections to a General National Congress on 7 July 2012, and handing power to the newly elected assembly on 8 August.

The formation of the NTC was announced in the city of Benghazi on 27 February 2011 with the purpose to act as the "political face of the revolution". On 5 March 2011, the council issued a statement in which it declared itself to be the "only legitimate body representing the people of Libya and the Libyan state". An executive board, chaired by Mahmoud Jibril, was formed by the council on 23 March 2011 after being de facto assembled as an "executive team" since 5 March 2011. The NTC issued a Constitutional Declaration in August 2011 in which it set up a road-map for the transition of the country to a constitutional democracy with an elected government.

Democracy as a concept and as a practical form of government has been the subject of critique throughout history. Some critics consider that democratic regimes often fail to be true to the highest principles expected of them, while others reject the values promoted by constitutional democracy in whole or part.

Opposition to democracy goes as far back as Plato, who argued for a 'government of the best qualified'. More recently, James Madison extensively studied historic attempts at and arguments on democracy in his preparation for the Constitutional Convention, and Winston Churchill remarked that, "No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

A peaceful transition or transfer of power is a concept important to democratic governments in which the leadership of a government peacefully hands over control of government to a newly elected leadership. This may be after elections or during the transition from a different kind of political regime, such as the post-communist period after the fall of the Soviet Union.

In scholarship examining democratization and emerging democracies, study of the successful transitions of power is used to understand the transition to constitutional democracy and the relative stability of that government. A 2014 study concluded that 68 countries had never had a peaceful transition of power due to an election since 1788.