Constitution of Ukraine

On 8 December 2004, the parliament passed Law No. 2222-IV amending the constitution.[8] The law was approved with a 90 percent majority (402 voted in favour and 21 against, with 19 abstentions; 300 in favour required for passage) simultaneously with other legislative measures aimed at resolving the 2004 presidential election crisis. It was signed almost immediately in the parliamentary chamber by the outgoing President Leonid Kuchma and promulgated on the same day. These amendments weakened the power of the President of Ukraine, who lost the power to nominate the Prime Minister of Ukraine, which became the task of the parliament solely. The President could only appoint the Minister of Defence and Foreign Minister. The President also lost the right to dismiss members of the Cabinet of Ukraine, but gained the right to dissolve Parliament.[9] If no coalition in parliament could be formed to appoint a Prime Minister, the President would have no choice but to call new parliamentary elections.[10] The 2004 constitutional amendments were passed in the Parliament only with limited consultation and discussion between political forces, in the context of the Orange Revolution. They therefore attracted criticism from several internal (Ukrainian political parties) and external bodies (the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and the Venice Commission).[11]

The amendments took force unconditionally on 1 January 2006.[10] The remaining amendments took force on 25 May 2006, when the new parliament assembled after the 2006 elections. On 1 October 2010, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine overturned the 2004 amendments, considering them unconstitutional.[12][13] The Court had started to consider the case on the political reform in 2004 under a motion from 252 coalition lawmakers regarding the constitutionality of this reform of 14 July 2010.[14][15][16] The 2010 nullification decision was highly controversial. The Council of Europe's Human Rights Commissioner received several reports alleging that the resignation of four judges in the run-up to the decision occurred as a result of extensive pressure by the executive.[17] On 18 November 2010, the Venice Commission published its report titled The Opinion of the Constitutional Situation in Ukraine in Review of the Judgement of Ukraine's Constitutional Court, in which it stated: "It also considers highly unusual that far-reaching constitutional amendments, including the change of the political system of the country – from a parliamentary system to a parliamentary presidential one – are declared unconstitutional by a decision of the Constitutional Court after a period of 6 years. ... As Constitutional Courts are bound by the Constitution and do not stand above it, such decisions raise important questions of democratic legitimacy and the rule of law".[18]

On 21 February 2014, the parliament passed a law that reinstated the 8 December 2004 amendments of the constitution. This was passed under a simplified procedure, without any decision of the relevant committee, and was passed in the first and the second reading in one vote by 386 deputies. The law was approved by 140 MPs of the Party of Regions, 89 MPs of Batkivshchyna, 40 MPs of UDAR, 32 of the Communist Party, and 50 independent lawmakers.[19] According to Radio Free Europe, the measure was not signed by the then-President Viktor Yanukovych, who was subsequently removed from office.[20] The reinstatement of these amendments was adopted according to the 2014 Agreement on Settlement of Political Crisis in Ukraine. This was followed shortly thereafter by the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation and the 2014 Russian military intervention in Ukraine.

On 7 February 2019, the Verkhovna Rada voted 334 to 17 to amend the constitution to state Ukraine's strategic objectives as joining the European Union and NATO.[21]

• Constitution of Pylyp Orlyk (1710)
• Constitution of the Ukrainian National Republic (1917)
• First Constitution of the Ukrainian SSR (1919)
  • Amendments of 1925
• Second Constitution of the Ukrainian SSR (1929)
• Third Constitution of the Ukrainian SSR (1937)
• Fourth Constitution of the Ukrainian SSR (1978)
• Constitution of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (1998)

• Constitutional economics
• Constitutionalism
• Rule according to higher law