The history of Ukrainian constitutionalism was discussed during a lecture

To mark Ukraine’s Constitution Day, the Center for research on the legal profession and law of the UNBA in collaboration with the «Bykivnia Graves» National Historical and Memorial Reserve organized an online lecture on the history of the Ukrainian constitutional process.

The lecture, titled «They were at the origins of statehood», took place on June 26. It was led by the reserve’s scientific secretary Valerii Filimonikhin, who is also an active participant in the All-Ukrainian project «History of Ukrainian advocacy» organized by the Center for research on the legal profession and law of the UNBA.

The lecture was attended by scholars, local historians, and schoolteachers.

During his presentation, V. Filimonikhin discussed Ukraine’s historical experience in drafting constitutional acts from the example of the treaty between a prince and his retinue during the era of Kievan Rus’ to the constitutional drafts and acts of the Ukrainian Revolution period.

Topics covered in the lecture included Pylyp Orlyk’s «Pacts and constitutions of laws and liberties of the Zaporizhian Host» of 1710, the political and legal explorations of the Cyril and Methodius Society, and the drafts by Mykhailo Drahomanov, Mykhailo Hrushevsky and Mykhailo Mikhnovsky.

The section on the era of the Central Rada covered the universal decrees, the proclamation of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, the adoption of the Fourth Universal Decree, and the draft Constitution of the UPR «The statute on the state structure, rights and freedoms of the UPR», which never came into force.

The lecturer also focused on the constitutional documents from the period of Pavlo Skoropadskyi’s Hetmanate, the Directory, the Labor Congress, the Act of Unification of the UPR and the ZUNR, and the constitutional drafts by Stanislav Dnistrianskyi, Stepan Baran and Otto Eichelmann.

A separate section of the lecture was devoted to the constitutional process during the era of the Ukrainian SSR. V. Filimonikhin noted that four constitutions were adopted during the existence of the Ukrainian SSR, however, they were political in nature and were drafted in accordance with the ideological approaches of the party leadership.

Speaking about the Constitution of Ukraine, adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on June 28, 1996, the lecturer highlighted its fundamental provisions regarding a sovereign, democratic, social, and law-based state; the supreme social value of the human person, their life and health, honor and dignity, inviolability and security; as well as the provision recognizing the people as the bearer of sovereignty and the sole source of power in Ukraine.

At the end of the lecture, V. Filimonikhin noted that all constitutional documents adopted during the formative period of Ukrainian constitutionalism have left their mark on the development of Ukrainian statehood.

The Center for research on the legal profession and law of the UNBA has been collaborating with the National Historical and Memorial Reserve «Bykivnia Graves» for over 10 years. One of the results of this collaboration was the preparation and publication of the book «The Kyiv advocacy at the turn of the centuries: origins, fates, repressions», which covers the historical period from 1900 to World War II. Research for the second volume is currently underway.