Constitution Day, 28 June 2024
A short note on the anniversary, with an observation about what the document has been doing lately.
Ukraine marks the anniversary of its constitution today.
The substance is, as always, not mine to argue. But I will make one observation that is descriptive rather than political.
A constitution is usually invisible. It becomes visible in two situations: when someone tries to breach it, and when a country is explaining itself to others. Ukraine has spent these years doing the second continuously — in accession documents, in international proceedings, in the assessments described elsewhere in this archive.
A state that has to describe its own constitutional order to outsiders in detail, repeatedly, ends up knowing that order rather well. That is an unexpected side effect of the last few years and not a trivial one.
A good Constitution Day to everyone marking it.
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