The article clarifies the essence of the concept of constitutional national identity. Based on the analysis of scientists' opinions and their understanding of the content of this category, a broad and narrow approach to the interpretation of constitutional identity is distinguished. In the first case, i.e. in a broad sense, we are talking about a set of certain principles, institutions and traditions that are the basis of law-making and lawenforcement activities. Under a narrow approach, it means the presence of unchanged provisions of the Basic Law. Based on the results of the analysis, it was concluded that awareness of the essence of the constitutional national identity is important when making changes and additions to the Basic Law, because the principle under study acts as a certain safeguard, acts, so to speak, as a “chain dog” (guardian), which stands in the way of attempts to distort or replace concepts in a certain way, separating those changes that are acceptable to the national legal system from those that may prove destructive to it.

It is emphasized that this category is relatively new for Ukrainian constitutional law, while at the same time it is widespread in European law, primarily due to the practice of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany. In particular, Germany’s body of constitutional jurisdiction developed the doctrine of constitutional identity through the “eternity” clause. In its turn, the Constitutional Tribunal of Poland determines the identity of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland through the “undelegated powers of state authorities”, which are defined by various provisions of the Basic Law. The Italian Constitutional Court understands constitutional identity through the concept of counterborders or constitutional borders.

It has been established that the doctrine of constitutional identity is based on the national aspect or national self-identification of a certain political nation and state, which, of course, is of fundamental importance. The basis of the national constitutional identity is considered to be the idea of a political nation as a stable community of people that has formed historically and emerged on the basis of a common language, a single territory, economic life and mental composition, which is manifested in a common culture and state. This very aspect of the understanding of constitutional identity was recently recognized for the first time by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, when it formulated the relevant term in the decision in the case based on the constitutional submission of 51 people’s deputies of Ukraine regarding the conformity of the Constitution of Ukraine (constitutionality) with the Law of Ukraine “On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as a State Language”

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