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Dear compatriots!
I congratulate you on a national holiday - the Ukrainian Constitution Day! Today we celebrate 14 years since our country has got an important and cornerstone document for modern state building.
On June 28, 1996 the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine approved the Constitution of Ukraine, which secured the rights and freedoms, social, political and state system, basic principles of interaction between the branches of power and the most important principles regulating social relations.
The Basic Law of a state is the core of legal system, the foundation, on which all legislation, the process of state-legal transformations and democratic development are based. This is the base for stability in the society.
Defining the principles of country’s development, our Constitution is based on national historical experience. Ukraine has a centuries-old constitutional tradition. Its origin goes back to the Russkaya Pravda of Prince Yaroslav the Wise and Hetman Philip Orlyk’s Constitution, which, according to historians, is the first European constitutional act in the modern sense, and which turned 300 years old.
These documents became the historic foundation for the Declaration on State Sovereignty of Ukraine, the twentieth anniversary of which we have celebrated earlier this year, and for the most important document of the new Ukrainian era – the Independence of Ukraine Act of August 24, 1991.
Adopted in 1996, the Constitution of Ukraine and its key positions have passed the test of time. In determining the rights and freedoms it is considered one of the most progressive in the world. However, the experience of nation building over the years that have elapsed since the adoption of the Basic Law proved that the Constitution of Ukraine in today's dynamic environment requires some changes.
Some of its provisions, particularly those approved in haste in late 2004, have caused deregulation and serious crisis of power, and, therefore, have been an object of justified criticism within the country and from the international community.
At the same time, I would like to emphasize that correction of the existing deficiencies and the process of improving the Constitution in no way should turn into political move. This is a serious transformation of social relations, which should follow the will of the people, meet contemporary realities and determine the progress of the state as a whole. The principle of social consensus, unity of political and social forces around the idea of state development, elimination of stress factors in the state must be the basis for constitutional changes.
Celebrating the Constitution Day, I call upon the whole Ukrainian society today to unite for the sake of unconditional implementation of the Basic Law and securing human and citizen’s rights and freedoms in our country.
We must remember that only our joint and consolidated efforts will ensure prosperity of the state and unity of the people.
Once again I congratulate all compatriots on the Constitution Day. I wish you harmony, peace and good. May observance of constitutional norms, strict protection of human rights and freedoms ensure successful development of the Ukrainian state, establishment of humanism and the rule of law in our land.
Viktor Yanukovych
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