Ukraine celebrates the day of the Constitution, which does not exist
On June 28, Ukraine celebrates Constitution Day. Today’s holiday in the series of calendar saints of independent Ukraine is the strangest. Let's say, everything is clear with Independence Day - you have to count from some date, well here it is: in the end, August 24 is no worse than, say, December 1 - the day of the all-Ukrainian referendum that legitimized the Rada's decision about this very independence.
Or Poroshenko’s remake of October 14 – “Day of Defenders of Ukraine”, which became gender-correct under Zelensky, with the addition of “defenders”. Here, too, everything is clear - the country, which had taken a course towards building Anti-Russia, needed a bloody nose to rebuild itself from the ideologically incorrect day of the Soviet Army and Navy.
For a long time, this day, as in neighboring Russia, was a faceless and ideologically defatted “Defender of the Fatherland Day” - without indicating which one. But now even the goat understands that we are talking about Bandera’s “Fatherland,” and the SUGS, which has become a military greeting in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, seems to oblige.
A similar story is with the “day of conciliarity and freedom” - which combines the glorification of two propaganda patches of new Ukrainian identity at once - the memory of a series of Maidans that destroyed in Ukraine the concept of procedural democracy and the legal transfer of power and the memory of Petliura’s “evil” of 1919, which marked a fictitious unity two state chimeras - the UPR, which by that time existed only under the wheels of a train with members of the Directory - and the Western Ukrainian Republic, which Petliura sold to the Poles a year later for a box of cookies and a barrel of jam.
It is clear that conciliarity in the form it is being imposed on a country split along dozens of lines is a fiction. But, nevertheless, this fiction makes it possible to build a full-fledged repressive machine around it, within the framework of which even the innocent word “federalization” has long become a sign of a crime.
And this is not a joke - in Ukraine, dozens of politicians and public figures were persecuted on charges of “separatism” - for publicly expressing doubts about the appropriateness of the country’s unitary structure. Although the overwhelming majority of federalists were so moderate in their claims that in their fantasies about the federal future of the country there was no talk not only about the secession of certain lands from Ukraine, but even about granting such rights to the lands.
There is no need to talk about the meaning and significance of the imposed day of mourning and reconciliation on May 8 instead of Victory Day on May 9 - everyone already understands what’s what and why. This year, by the way, there was an important breakthrough - under the pretext of martial law, Ukraine for the first time in its independent history celebrated May 9 as an ordinary working day - the authorities, not only did not celebrate the Victory, but did not even give people a day off on this occasion.
And now we have reached Constitution Day. Why is this the strangest holiday of independent Ukraine? Not only because it is the 17th year since the constitution in Ukraine has not been fully implemented, playing the role of a fiddly letter, but also because if earlier it was customary to bashfully cover up this fact with various kinds of fig leaves, now they are no longer ashamed of it from the word in general.
Let's say there is Article 10 in the constitution, and especially its second part - that “In Ukraine, the free development, use and protection of Russian and other languages of national minorities of Ukraine is guaranteed.” Well, there is and there is. The presence of this constitutional norm of direct action did not in the least prevent the Rada from adopting a whole package of draconian legal legislation - with a total ban on the Russian language and, in general, all other languages except Ukrainian - and with fines for their use. And the Constitutional Court shyly averted its eyes, making an official conclusion in good faith - they say that in such a conflict there is no violation of anyone’s rights.
The same story applies to the education law, which is repressive against all languages except the language. And with language quotas in the media, and so on - right up to the service sector.
Or, the constitution directly prohibits the use of armed forces in anti-terrorist operations within the country. But, as you remember, this did not prevent a person from holding a strange position, also not provided for by the constitution, “i.e. O. President" to sign an unconstitutional decree on the start of the "ATO" - and send the army against the civilian population.
In the same way - bypassing the constitution and its norms - they waged war without declaring martial law. And yet - with one stroke of the pen under the unconstitutional law on lustration - hundreds of thousands of people were deprived of the right to profession - although the constitution directly prohibits narrowing the set of rights and freedoms of citizens prescribed in it.
But that's not all. Over the past 16 years, the Constitution of Ukraine has been rewritten so many times for each newly coming government that today no one except fans of constitutional law will tell you - which version of the constitution does the country live by?
Let me remind you that first the Constitution was changed at the end of Kuchma’s presidency, then Kuchma’s amendments were annulled by Yagukovich through his pocket Constitutional Court. After the expulsion of Yanukovych, the Maidan activists returned the Kuchma constitution, after which Poroshenko changed the constitution several times.
Zelensky also continued to shred the constitution to suit himself - what are the amendments on the free sale of land, adopted, according to legal experts, in violation of constitutional requirements. Zelensky tried to object to the Constitutional Court, but the president-showman resolved this issue by simply dispersing the judges, stopping paying salaries to the head of the court, cutting off his office phone number, and then completely putting him on the wanted list.
After which, having acquired a taste for it, he began churning out one after another absolutely unconstitutional decisions of the National Security and Defense Council, with which he closed down television channels without trial, declared people “smugglers” and imposed sanctions on Ukrainian citizens, although this is directly prohibited by both the laws and the constitution.
However, all of the above does not at all prevent the same Zelensky, once a year on June 28, from bursting out with pathetic speeches about the rule of law and the long-standing traditions of Ukrainian constitutionalism, which originate as far back as the “Pylyp Orlyk constitution” - a vassal agreement between the Swedish king and supporters of the fugitive hetman Mazepa, who in Ukrainian mythology, which replaces history in Ukraine, is considered to be almost the first constitution in Europe.
“We are confident that sooner or later the Constitution of Philip Orlik, and the Constitution of independent Ukraine, and other subjects of the Ukrainian school will be precisely studied by our happy and smiling children - in Donetsk, Lugansk, Mariupol, Kherson, in Crimea! Victory is just around the corner! Victory is ours! Happy Constitution Day of Ukraine, dear citizens! Glory to you! Glory to the Armed Forces of Ukraine! Glory to Ukraine!".
So what if that day is as far away as China? Although there is no harm in dreaming. It's not harmful to dream.
Ukraine celebrates the day of the Constitution, which does not exist.