Проект Конституції УНР 1917 р.: передумови появи, зміст, сучасні оцінки

Abstract

The Draft Constitution of the Ukrainian People’s Republic (UNR), was prepared by the Commission of the Central Council of Ukraine in December 1917, had almost not been reflected in contemporary Ukrainian historiography. The subject of the research is the results of the work of the Legal Document Preparation Commission, which gave a legitimacy to the restoration of the Ukrainian statehood and were embodied in the Draft Constitution of the UNR. The methodology of the article is determined by the requirements of historical and legal research. The method of comparative legal analysis of legislative acts and normative documents allows comparing the Draft Constitution of the UNR with the Statute on the State System, Rights and Freedoms of the UNR, worked out on the basis of the above mentioned Draft. The analysis of the constitutional draft was carried out taking into account the specific historical conditions and circumstances of its emergence, according to the historical method of the interpretation of law. The method of qualitative analysis of legal documents was used to scrutinize the norms enshrined in the Draft Constitution of the UNR. The usage of various research methods allows following the evolution of the constitutional entrenchment of the restoration of Ukrainian statehood in the Universals of the Central Council of Ukraine, in laws and constitutional documents, as well as presenting Mychailo grushevsky’s vision of components of the future constitution, his confidence in the democratic character of the Ukrainian state, giving an opportunity to analyze the draft Constitution of the UNR, published in December 1917, and comparing it with the Statute on the State System, Rights and Freedoms of the UNR, which was approved by the Small Council in April 1918. According to the constitutional draft, the UNR, consisting of 10 provinces, should become an autonomous part of the Russian Federal Republic. The Draft Constitution included also the principles of popular sovereignty, democratic system, the division of powers, the creation of check-and-balance system in the functioning of the authorities, judicial guarantees of the sovereignty of the Ukrainian republic, decentralization and development of self-government, protection of the citizen rights and the rights of national minorities.