28.06.2007

11th anniversary of the adoption of Constitution of Ukraine.

On June 28, 1996 the Constitution of Ukraine was adopted at the 5th session of the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) of Ukraine. The constitution was passed with 315 ayes out of 450 possible (300 ayes minimum).
The Constitution is the fundamental law of the land: laws and other normative legal acts must conform to it. The right to amend the Constitution through a special legislative procedure is vested exclusively with the parliament. The only body that may interpret the Constitution and determine whether legislation conforms to it is the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.
Until June 8, 1995, Ukraine's supreme law was the Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the Ukrainian SSR (adopted in 1978, with numerous later amendments).
On June 8, 1995, President Leonid Kuchma and Speaker Oleksandr Moroz (acting on behalf of the parliament) signed the Constitutional Agreement for the period until a new constitution could be drafted.
Present Constitution was adopted at a dramatic overnight parliamentary session of June 27 - June 28, 1996, semi-officially known as "the constitutional night of 1996".
The Law No. 254/96-BP ratifying the Constitution, nullifying previous Constitution and the Agreement was ceremonially signed and promulgated in mid-July 1996. However, according to a ruling of the Constitutional Court, current Constitution took force at the moment when the results of the parliamentary vote were announced, i.e., June 28, 1996, at approx. 9 a.m. Kiev time.
On December 8, 2004, the parliament passed the Law No. 2222-IV amending the Constitution. The law was approved with a 90 percent majority (402 ayes, 21 nays, and 19 abstentions; 300 ayes required for passage) simultaneously with other legislative measures aimed at resolving the presidential election crisis. It was signed almost immediately in the parliamentary chamber by the outgoing President Leonid Kuchma and promulgated on the same day.
Most of the amendments were scheduled to take force on September 1, 2005, conditionally on passing a set of amendments reforming local self-government by that date. Since the reform of the self-government was not implemented, the amendments took force unconditionally on January 1, 2006. The remaining amendments took force on May 25, 2006, when the new parliament assembled after the 2006 elections.

Embassy of Ukraine
in the Republic of Estonia