In February-March 2023, the RPR Coalition, the Center of Policy and Legal Reform, and the Active Community Club held discussions on the concepts for the state’s future development in the context of crucial reforms. Among them  was the Constitutional Reform as the basis for state institutions’ stability, foundation for anti-corruption reform, decentralization, and the Reform of independent regulators. All these key reforms require making appropriate changes to the Constitution. We would like to share some findings of the experts and the results of expert and public discussions regarding the future of Constitutional Reform.

After the military victory of Ukraine, there will be a need to get rid of the Soviet heritage in the Constitution of Ukraine and search for more effective forms of public governance and interaction between the state and society. Undoubtedly, it’ll lead to a comprehensive constitutional reform reflecting the latest realities of state-building processes. Constitutional reform should be carried out exclusively in a legitimate way. How? The optimal technology for carrying out the Reform may be adopting a new version of the Constitution of Ukraine per the procedure established for changing the protected sections of the Constitution.

The new version of the Constitution of Ukraine may be based on the following principles:

• de-Sovietization/decommunization – Soviet and post-colonial names, terms, and concepts should be removed from the Constitution;
• modernization – the text of the Constitution reflects the modern realities of the Ukrainian state and society, the international legal order, and technological progress;
• optimization of the constitutional design – in the new version of the Constitution, existing errors and contradictions regarding the realization of human rights, the methods of organization and functioning of public power, and other inaccuracies should be corrected;
• the rule of law  – the Constitution must establish the rule of law in society, respect for human dignity and human rights;
• value approach – the Constitution should be perceived as the quintessence of values prevailing in society and not as a detailed instruction that provides rules of behavior for all occasions of life;
• brevity and autonomy – the content of the Constitution should be limited only to the essential principles, forms, and procedures of the organization of the constitutional legal order;
• clarity and legal certainty – the provisions of the Constitution will have signs of clarity and nonambiguity, which excludes its unequal application or arbitrary interpretation in law enforcement practice; the number of ideological provisions of the Constitution should be reduced to a minimum;
• phasing of the constitutional Reform – the Constitution must necessarily provide for the phasing of the process of restarting the relevant authorities and institutions after it enters into force.

What can a renewed Constitution look like? Find out in the infographic: