Political culture, shortcomings of the Constitution, government activities. The closer we get to the European community, the more severely it will require us to answer difficult questions
Roman Bessmertny is one of the largest experts in Ukraine on the Basic Law. Actually, he is an active participant in the constitutional process itself in the mid-90s, and if the Constitution does have parents, then Bessmertny is perhaps the youngest of them. Once a year I re-read the “constitutional” interview that Roman Petrovich once gave to Ukrinform, going into detail, revealing nuances, destroying stereotypes about how it was on Constitutional Night. More precisely, how long the process actually lasted until the night of June 28, 1996.
The UKRINFORM agency spoke with Roman Bessmertny in the eleventh year of the Russian-Ukrainian war, in the third - after a full-scale invasion, on the second day after the end of the Global Peace Summit and an hour after Mr. Stoltenberg said that NATO was negotiating the deployment of large volumes of nuclear weapons due to the growing threat from the Russian Federation and China.
That is why the conversation on the topic of possible future constitutional changes was not limited to the Constitution.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PROCESS SHOULD NEVER STOP
— Roman Petrovich, you, one of the creators of the current Constitution of Ukraine, would like to ask whether it needs changes? What would you propose to change in the current Basic Law?
— The first thing that is important is for the entire political community to understand: the Constitution is a living organism. And if we compare the perception of the norms of the Constitution of 1996 and 2024, then discussions are now possible that we could not imagine either in our dreams or in our worst nightmares. For example, can a citizen of Ukraine have dual or multiple citizenship? When the Constitution was adopted, its authors stated that a citizen of Ukraine cannot have dual citizenship...
Or another situation that we are living through now - “security agreements”. Such agreements must be ratified by parliament, especially when it comes to receiving or transferring any resources. For example, according to the current Constitution, what is called military property cannot be delivered to or from the territory of Ukraine without a decision from the relevant institutions. In our country, such an agreement is not ratified, but is in fact accepted by the two parties for execution, although the Basic Law clearly requires ratification.
I can give many examples showing how the Constitution changes depending on what tasks, under what conditions, new generations implement. This is good because, on the one hand, it shows that the Constitution lives. On the other hand, that the Constitutional process cannot be interrupted. There must be a permanent constitutional commission in the parliament of any state. Act on a scientific level, on a political level. Because these changes, which actually occurred, must be collected, analyzed, written down, and then, under the pressure of legal or political arguments, appropriate corrections must be made. Because you need to understand: 1995-1996, when this was created, is one thing, 2024-2025 is another. Long distance.
— How to make changes to the Constitution during a war?
“This is not about making changes. And about the technical process, which should not be interrupted. Constitutionalism does not emerge from a blank slate. We talk a lot about the Constitution of Pylyp Orlyk. But we don’t say anything about the constitutions of the Central Rada, Western Ukraine, and Soviet Ukraine. And all this is of great importance from the point of view of the development of constitutionalism. And we should continue to work on this. And on this, among other things, Ukrainian politics should grow.
In the current conditions, the norms of the Constitution concerning security issues require changes. Probably everyone pays attention to the fact that the Ukrainian Constitution has a National Security and Defense Council. Although in Soviet Ukraine after 1991 there was a separate Defense Council, which was created in the event of war, intervention or violation of territorial integrity.
And the National Security and Defense Council existed separately as a permanent body. Now these things are combined, and during war this helps to move more quickly from one phase to another. But this also requires correction. Because today the relationship between the Verkhovna Rada and the President, the President and the Armed Forces has changed. And the structure of the security sector organization has changed dramatically.
THE CONSTITUTION IS A LIVING ORGANISM, IT SHOULD HAVE THE SAME DYNAMICS AS SOCIETY AND BE ADEQUATE TO THE TIMES
Following. Today there are half a dozen bodies - NACP, NABU, Anti-Corruption Court, about which there is nothing in the Constitution. It turns out that in the Ukrainian government system there are constitutional and extra-constitutional bodies and their weight is completely different? All this requires improvement: either the removal of everyone, or the inclusion of everyone, in order to level the situation, especially if these bodies work in the field of human rights.
Or there is a norm that the network of healthcare institutions cannot be reduced. But it has already changed, so such a norm cannot continue to be in the Constitution.
Therefore, I remind you: the Constitution is a living organism, it must have the same dynamics as society, and be adequate to the times.
— What can you say about the driving forces of the constitutional process? Should he, for example, monitor and take into account Facebook discussions?
— Any discussions must be taken into account. For example, there is a discussion about elections. To elect and to be elected is an absolute human right. And in conditions of war it is impossible to ensure this right. Holding elections today is a violation of human rights, and at such a time it is simply unacceptable.
If the government does not see its active interaction with society and, in conditions of threats, does not respond to this with internal processes (through, for example, political consolidation, the creation of a government of national salvation), if politicians and policies do not create appropriate mechanisms, then it is necessary to analyze the Constitution and think about omissions that are in it.
— Do you think it’s a matter of the Constitution?
— There are no provisions in the Ukrainian Constitution that there should be guarantees for the activities of the opposition. There you have the right to speak out and create political forces. But the rights of the opposition are an impulse for the development of the political system, and they are not even outlined there. Because of this, political management has sagged in Ukraine today.
-What are you talking about?
— If tomorrow Ukraine has to elect members of the European Parliament, then there are several identified groups in different ideological directions. Who interacts with them? “European Solidarity”, “Batkivshchyna”, several Christian parties that are really absent from Ukrainian political life? Which camp will the biggest political force go to? Where will she end up? In the European People's Party? In the Alliance of Socialists and Democrats? This is a consequence of the fact that we hold party congresses, so to speak, “with pizza,” and then we think, do we have an ideology?
I don’t care what names these political forces are represented by. I wonder who European politicians will work with? Because the political mechanism in Europe does not work through meetings in the European Parliament, it works through inter-party contacts. Ukraine is developing, gaining strength, but political life in it seems to be drying out...
And the further, the more often I ask myself the question: where exactly and what did we miss while developing the Constitution? How did this happen and why did the classical ideologies that originated in Ukraine end up in a landfill? Christian ideas, ideas of republicanism, liberal ideas, ecologists - the green party, that is (in the state that survived Chernobyl) ... There were attempts, but all this gave rise to fly-by-night parties. Where is the reason?
“It started when the oligarchs started buying parties, and the party leaders were selling them...
— Political culture, shortcomings of the Constitution, government activities. The closer we come to the European community, the more severely it will require us to answer difficult questions.
NEITHER IN TEHRAN, OR YALTA, OR POTSDAM, HITLER WAS NOT AND COULD NOT BE, SO WHAT THE HELL SHOULD PUTIN DO IN BURGENSTOCK?
— Let's talk about the results of the Global Peace Summit.
— There are several approaches to the Summit. And this is very clearly visible in the coverage of his work. Here we read the conclusion of Turkish Foreign Minister Fidan, who says that the summit cannot take place without Russia’s participation. Other people at the summit object: they say, we didn’t see Hitler either in Tehran, or in Yalta, or in Potsdam. Why is this happening? But because politics, as a sphere of activity, does not exist not only in Ukraine, it is basically destroyed in the world.
In 1945, the structure of the post-war world was determined in Yalta and Potsdam. And at what summit is the design of the future world being developed now, although the war is already in its eleventh year? Messages sound like: “In accordance with the UN Charter, resolutions of the General Assembly, and international law.” That is, the current structure is recognized by everyone, but why then are UN decisions not implemented? The OSCE is also unable to make a single decision. And if you go through all the continental and regional institutions, they are just as paralyzed.
- What works?
- "Ramstein." Tell me, on the basis of which international documents does the Ramstein format operate? And where are the formal signs of his activity?
- Well, this is such an alliance of world forces...
- This means that the politics of fact, not law, determines the future. In such conditions, it is obvious that the club, which is Ramstein, and the Summit, which gathered in Switzerland, sooner or later, will actually play the role of these regulators.
But the current global situation today speaks of polarization. It is already clear that those who gravitate toward the camp of goodness, democracy, and freedom have gathered in Switzerland. Those who gather in Beijing and Moscow are the axis of evil. Here's the design. Now attention: if such a policy is natural, and we, the participants in this process - professional politicians, know history, then we know what this leads to. This leads first to a continental war, and then to a global war.
Consider the words of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia, spoken at the Summit in Switzerland, that peace is a painful compromise. What other “painful compromise” could there be based on the UN Charter and international law? And this is said by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of a state that has acceded to all international acts?
THE IMMATURITY OF CURRENT INTERNATIONAL POLITICS IS PAVING THE ROAD TO CONTINENTAL AND GLOBAL WAR
In fact, the situation is very difficult, not because something is not written out there or something is missing. The world developed, laws were passed. But respect for the implementation of the laws remained there, in the cemeteries of those killed and tortured during the Second World War. There they remain along with the remains of the people who saved those who today allow themselves to talk about a “painful compromise,” realizing that Russia, from A to Z, has violated everything that exists in the world. They allow themselves to talk about this, although they live thanks to the fact that Ukrainians are dying at the front, in the rear under shelling...
The immaturity of current international politics actually paves the way to continental and global war. This is obvious. Similar summits - the G7 summits, the Global Peace Summit - they are necessary. Because these are the forms that compensate for the weakness and inactivity of the UN General Assembly, its Security Council, the OSCE and any other regional, continental and global associations and security structures.
— Global South. How is the position of different countries formed there? From South Africa to India and Brazil. Is it possible to motivate them to take a position closer to Ukrainian interests?
— What is the Global South? This, to put it simply, is about how to divide the money to save planet Earth from destruction; coordinate the resources allocated for the energy transition with the resources allocated for food supply.
And here China is one position, the Philippines is a completely different position, Brazil is another position, Argentina is another. I am silent about Africa, because there is no state, no position. And so that we don’t bother ourselves with how Brazil differs from Algeria, Algeria from Angola, etc., they “rolled up” all this, and wrote on top in beautiful letters: Global South. In fact, this classification of countries in the world is applicable in global conditions, because it speaks to the West’s concern about how to help them build an effective economy, provide energy, and food. But now security issues are a priority, we need peace, to protect the world in it, to simply survive.
- And how to achieve this?
— Very interesting statistics were published at the G7 regarding the environmental consequences of Russian aggression in Ukraine. When you read, you understand that the war, which everyone still considers local, caused such harm to the world, including the so-called Global South, that it cannot be called anything other than global.
Therefore, you and I should be concerned about how to curb evil while the cooperation of the Axis of Evil between Moscow, Tehran and Beijing improves. Therefore, coordination within the framework of Ramstein should also accelerate and move to the political level. The axis of evil is already being coordinated at the technological level, and in the camp of freedom, goodness and civilization there is still a search for a configuration of interaction in only one issue - how to help Ukraine. But the question must be posed more broadly: about combining forces, creating a joint command, creating a joint defense-industrial complex.
“And the United States should be the leader here.” And on the other hand?
“Thank God that at least now we understand the obvious: it is not Beijing that leads Moscow, but Moscow that governs Beijing.” Because it was Moscow that called and told the Chinese not to go to the Global Summit. By the way, this also applies to the war between Iran and Israel, which was also planned in Russia and provided from Russia, because the Kremlin desperately needs it. Hence it is obvious that in these questions we must look for an answer about the fate of the future, and about the agenda for the future, and about how the Global South will behave. After a while, you will see, this term will no longer be used.
— How can you confirm such a conclusion, unexpected for our times?
— Take the situation with BRICS. The Global Peace Summit is being held in Bürgenstock, where the Indian delegation is present, and a meeting on the BRICS summit is being held in Moscow, and there is also an Indian delegation there. Where will India be tomorrow? This is what choice Narendra Modi will make now, where should he go?
I don’t want to talk about everyone who was at the Summit and did not sign the joint communiqué - they are still deciding, they are wavering. There is polarization, there is division, but sooner or later they will be forced to make a decision: to be with one or the other. And once again I want to note that in the coming years I do not see a continuation of the conversation about the so-called Global South, because these countries will find themselves either in the camp of good, freedom, democracy, or in the axis of evil, there will be no third in such a situation, the world has become small for similar maneuvers.
— Is it possible to talk about the “Global West”? And how strong will the Ukraine-Global West alliance be, if it does exist? Do you believe in this prospect?
— I would operate with things that are already in effect: the European Union, the Ramstein format. I was somewhat skeptical about the Global Summit in mid-June, because I was afraid that, in parallel with the G7 summit and the decisions taken there, it could gurgle like a stone into water. But what were those who went for it right? It turned out to be a kind of show: who is with whom, who is with us. And it turned out not 193, not 160, but 80 signatories of the final document on three issues. Imagine if there were all 10 questions?
And if we go further: raise the question of Russia’s responsibility, about the Hague Tribunal, how many will sign such a communiqué? We must continue to “spud up” Russia by buying cheap gas and oil from it. When you read the resolution of the G7 summit, it is clear that they see the essence of the situation in the world: there are countries, people who violate sanctions, trade with Russia, there are ships that deliver prohibited oil by sea, companies that sell prohibited dual technologies to Russia...
Therefore, our task is to continue to explain to people that those who said were right: Hitler was not and could not be in Tehran, Yalta, or Potsdam, so what the hell should Putin do in Bürgenstock?
I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE LORD SAVED US FROM WITH THIS
— Roman Petrovich, you believe in the victory of Ukraine? You can’t help but believe, what is it based on, your faith?
“I’ll tell you this: just as darkness is where there is no light, so evil is where there is no good.” And I see the current situation, the relationship between good and evil, and I know for sure that good will win, because in the end it always wins. Yes, we pay for all this - for our own mistakes, for the mistakes of our allies, but the world also pays its due, humanity pays.
And I know that Ukraine will win this war, it will win thanks to the fact that there are allies, but the main thing is that truth is on the side of Ukraine, good is on the side of Ukraine. Another thing is that there are things that would help reduce the cost in this war. But all this is hard work, sweat, blood... And if you ask me: “Why is the Lord punishing us?”, then I will answer you this way: “I don’t know what the Lord saved us from with this.” With faith in God, we need to fulfill our mission.
