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Article Constitutional Jurisprudence (Official Constitutional Doctrine) in Ukraine: Problems of Establishment
Authors
IURII BARABASH

Doctor of Science of Law,  Full Professor, Honored Worker of Science of Ukraine, Vice-Rector for Research and Academic Affairs and Strategic Development Professor, Department of Constitutional Law of Ukraine, Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University (Kharkiv, Ukraine) ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1145-6452 yu.g.barabash@nlu.edu.ua

 

OLENA BORYSLAVSKA

Doctor of Law, Professor, Professor of the Department of Constitutional Law of the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, member of the Scientific Advisory Council at the Constitutional Court of Ukraine (Lviv, Ukraine) ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8338-0966 Researcher ID: HZH-6018-2023 olena.boryslavska@lnu.edu.ua

 

Name of magazine Legal journal «Law of Ukraine» (Ukrainian version)
Issue 7 / 2023
Pages 53 - 69
Annotation

Despite the fact that the body of constitutional justice has been functioning in Ukraine for quite a long period of time, the question of the nature and essence of constitutional jurisprudence (official constitutional doctrine) is still a subject of debate for the domestic scientific community. At the same time, the world discourse on this issue revolves around the fact that modern constitutional courts create law, and constitutional jurisprudence, as a result of their activity, significantly affects the development of national socio-political systems. In this article, we tried to analyze what constitutional jurisprudence is today, what is its nature and the main problems of its development in Ukraine. The search for answers to these questions required the analysis of several related questions of a methodological nature: regarding the essence of the constitution, the system of sources of constitutional law and the place of constitutional jurisprudence in it.

Since the concept of official constitutional doctrine is quite actively developing in Lithuania, we devoted special attention to the analysis of the Lithuanian experience, where the constitution is understood as “constitutional law”, which includes, in addition to the official constitutional text, interpretative acts of the Constitutional Court.

Considering the isolated properties of constitutional jurisprudence, we tried to look at its formation in Ukraine through the prism of national characteristics. As a result, it was found that its formation was negatively affected, first of all, by long-standing approaches in academic doctrine, in particular, the “Soviet” approach to understanding the sources of constitutional law, which led to the downplaying of the role of constitutional jurisprudence.

In addition, we analyzed some defects in the formation of the domestic official constitutional doctrine. Characterizing the current stage of the development of the official constitutional doctrine in Ukraine, it can be stated that, in general, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine has formed the methodological and axiological foundations of its jurisprudence. Particularly valuable from the point of view of axiological content are the latest decisions adopted by the Court already after the beginning of Russia’s full-scale armed aggression against Ukraine, which clearly articulate constitutional values and their fundamental nature.

 

Keywords constitutional jurisprudence; official constitutional doctrine; constitutional court; constitutional justice; constitutionalism
References

Bibliography

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