League for Constitutionalism and Legal Culture - Kyiv

Tel/fax 380-44-244-33-94; address Tolstogo St. 23, apt. 29, 01033, Kyiv, Ukraine;
e-mail: lclck@iatp.kiev.ua

The creation of the League for Constitutionalism and Legal Culture-Kyiv (March 2000) was caused by challenges of the qualitatively new stage of the legal reform process in Ukraine. The euphoria of first years of independence yielded more realistic perceiving the whole range of difficulties on a way of true (in contrast to declarative) accepting pluralistic democracy values. The period of laying down and conceiving the law system building fundamentals has turned to the "technological" phase of creating detailed mechanisms of this values embodiment.

The League was launched as non-partisan, non-profit public charity organization with a Kyiv city status, a kind of think-tank in the sphere of the most fundamental problems of public policy and public (in first turn, constitutional) law area. It aims at conducting study and research, pure and applied, as well as creating forum (both in real and virtual electronic space), holding trainings, round tables, conferences, making recommendations and proposals. Purposes for such activity are to facilitate the law reform process to become more dynamic and substantive; to strengthen conjunction of academic law science with the real life; to rationalize society development and integration into European structures and, thus, to make out a contribution to nurturing and development of authentic liberal constitutional democracy in Ukraine.

An accent will be done on offering an innovative ideas to resolve existing problems through borrowing and creative using the worldwide constitutionalism theory and practice achievements by exercising comparative law approach. Special attention will be paid to the importance of the interdisciplinary view on the problematic area and to mode of carrying out the law reform not only from the upper side (through enhancing "supply" of law) but also by forming natural "demand" of law from the very bottom-up: through legal consciousness and legal culture (both public and professional) becoming and growth.

The subject of the League activity is to aid

• the process of constitutionalization of legal order viewed as a direct impact of constitutional norms and principles proclaimed by the Constitution of Ukraine on legal relationships in the society;
• the effectivization the legal reform (making it more efficient and effective);
• becoming and development of civil society and its institutions;
• increasing the level of legal consciousness and legal culture of the society;
• accelerating the course of European integration;
• promoting an image of the country worldwide and its changes on the way of democratization.

Programs of activity:

1. Developing democratic constitutionalism: Ukrainian model.
2. Aid to growing professional and public legal culture.

Supervisory Board of the League:

Shyshkin I. Victor – Professor of Law, Ph.D., Member of the Verhovna Rada (Parliament of Ukraine), Deputy Head of the Committee on Legal Reform of the Verhovna Rada of Ukraine;

Shemshuchenko S. Juriy – Academic of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NASU), Professor, Dr of Laws, Director of the V.M. Koretsky Institute of State and Law under NASU;

Bondarenko F. Alexandr – Professor, Dr of Psychology, Chair of Psychology at the National Linguistic Univ.;

Moroz I. Boris – Professor of Philosophy, Ph.D., Institute of International relationship at the Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University.

Advisory Board of the League:

Martynenko F. Petro – Professor of Law, Ph.D., Judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine (retired).

Pogorilko F. Victor – Professor of law, Dr. of law, Vice-Director and Chair of Constitutional and Municipal law Department at the V.M. Koretsky Institute of State and Law of NASU.

President of the League:

Semenova A. Nadiya – Master of Laws (Kyiv National Univ.), European Public Law Academy diploma (Athens)

Examples of activity within the "Developing democratic constitutionalism: Ukrainian model" program.

1. Sub-project: "Ukrainian parliamentarism"
   • First public presentation of the League at the ECPRD Seminar "Independent Parliamentary researches" with the report "Problems and Paradoxes of the Constitutional Reform in Ukraine" held by the Verhovna Rada of Ukraine (May 2000)
   • contribution to the Conference "Parliamentarism in Ukraine: Theory and Practice" with a paper "Doctrine of the Economic Democratic Constitutionalism" held by the Institute of Legislation of the Verhovna Rada of Ukraine (June 2001)

2. Project "Instruments for enhancing the legal reform efficiency"
   • Collaboration with the European Public Law Centre (EPLC, Greece, www.eplc.gr). The Institutional Building JEP TASIS, TEMPUS project "Improving Legal Drafting as an Instrument for Accelerating the Legal Reform in Ukraine" aimed at the Centre of Comparative Law at the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine with the partnership of the Law Faculty of the Kyiv National University (on) has been prepared and submitted on March, 1 2001 (the EC decision on this project financing is being awaiting)
   • Project "Transferring Greek Expertise in the Sphere of Legal Aspects of European Integration to Ukraine" (together with the EPLC, under preparation now)
   • Participating and contributing many EPLC events on public (including European and constitutional) law thematic (during 1998 – 2001)
   • Collaboration with the European Association of Legislation (EAL, several Ukrainian scholars became EAL members). Participation in the "Legislative Evaluation" Seminar (organized by the Council of Europe in conjunction with the EPLC in Greece); the 4th EAL Congress "Evaluation of Laws" and the Seminar "Parliamentary Legislative research and Evaluation of Legislation" (organized with the ECPRD), both held in Polish Sejm in Warsaw in June, 2000. The League has rights on publishing the Congress materials on this subject in Ukrainian and/or Russian and searching funds and a partner to publish them. The project making it reality has been submitted (September 2001) to the IRF (local Soros foundation).

3. Project "The World Phenomena of Constitutionalism and Ukraine". Collaboration with the International Association of Constitutional Law (IACL, www.frg.eur.nl/pub/iacl)
   • For the first time in Ukraine such a collaboration has been established and developed (first four Ukrainian scholars became individual members of IACL, one organization – collective member). Participation in the IACL events Round Tables and Conferences including the Forth World Congress "Constitutionalism, Universalism and Democracy" in Rotterdam, Netherlands; "Doctrine of separation of powers at the edge of millenium" in the Lisbon, Portugal and others held in Italy, Poland, France ("Constitutional Law: the Pass from the 20-th century to the 21th century" – the academic part of the festivities on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the International Association of Constitutional Law held in French Senate, Paris, May 31- June 1 2001) etc.
   • Sub-project "Going West by using Eastern Experience for Democracy" – collaboration with Korean constitutional law scholars. Contribution to and participation in the "Democracy In the Future" Korean-Japanese Symposium of Korean Branch of IACL held in the Constitutional Court of Korea (Seoul, August 2000), the Conference "Ukraine, Europe, Japan: the Ways of State and Legal Systems Democratization" (Kyiv, October 2000) and "Far East – economic cooperation with Ukraine" (Kyiv, December 2000).
   • On-going sub-project aimed at preparation and holding the Round table of the IACL in Kyiv (October 2002). Title (provisional): "Constitutional Culture As a Factor of Legal Reform Effectivisation"
   • The League is a Ukrainian coordinator for an innovative project on establishing mutual collaboration between constitutionalists from Latin America and Eastern Europe. Two reports have been prepared for the First meeting having been held in the project leading institution - Wroclaw university on September 20-21, 2001: "The System of government of Ukraine" and "The System of Constitutional guaranties of human rights in Ukraine".

4. Project "Focusing on the Eastern-European regional cooperation"
   • Sub-project "Meeting the first decade of democratization" - preparation of the Ukrainian contribution (3 national and one general reports) to the program of the Conference "Ten years of Democratic Constitutionalism in the Central and Eastern Europe" organized by the group of Polish NGOs. Look at http://www.lawconference.umcs.lublin.pl.
   • Developing Cooperation with all-Yugoslav lawyers Association. Participation in the outstanding Kopaonic school of Natural law (twice: December 2000 and 2001)
   • Joint sub-project with the Belorussian Centre for Constitutionalism (Minsk) on presentation the International Philosophy of Law Association activity in our countries. The League has organized participation of two scholars (Ukrainian and Belorussian) in and three contributions (plus Russian one) to the 20-th World Congress of the International Association of Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (IVR) to be held in Amsterdam, June 2001.

5. Project "Forwarding the Legal Reform Through Re-Conceiving the Fundamentals of Law".
   For the first time in Ukraine the League has initiated the collaboration with the International Association of Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (IVR) (exists beginning 1909) which activity is of exceptional importance for development for whole spectrum of social sciences that substantiate the post-totalitarian development of Ukrainian society. Participation in the 20th IVR World Congress titled "Pluralism and Law" held in Amsterdam, June 19-26, 2001 (Look at www.rechten.vu.nl/~IVR/). Initiating the creation of the Ukrainian National Association of Philosophy of Law (on-going now)

6. The League was a co-organizer of the III World Forum of Ukrainians legal section held in August 19-23, 2001 and dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the independence of Ukraine.

7. The project Kyiv Summer School-2001 of Law Europeanisation aimed at young faculties (OSI/HESP potential financing) has been prepared together with colleagues from Bologna and J. Hopkins university

Research works of the League members have been represented in professional publications in Netherlands, Poland, Italy, Yugoslavia, Republic of Korea, Mexico

In the Ukrainian mass-media the League activity has been introduced in the "Legal Practice" newspaper No. 31 in 2000 and No. 26, 37 in 2001 (look at www.practix.com searching articles of Semenova.). New articles "Philosophical-Legal Accent-2001: Pluralism and Law" will be published soon.