Constitutional questions of the proclamation of independence with A. Mahera (fourth meeting) (23.12.2023)
The fourth conversation between the channel’s author and Andrii Mahera — a specialist in constitutional law and former deputy chairman of Ukraine’s Central Election Commission. The conversation concerns the legal nature of the Act of Independence of 24 August 1991: why the form of an “act” was chosen, how succession and continuity relate to each other, why the world recognized Ukraine after the referendum of 1 December, and how citizenship of the new state was acquired.
Key moments
- 01:16 Why an Act, and not a resolution or a law: the choice of the document's form
- 02:54 The Act as the state's "birth certificate"; more important than the Constitution
- 03:31 The precedent of Moldova's Constitutional Court: the declaration ranks above the Constitution
- 04:14 Proclamation or restoration? Why both interpretations are correct
- 06:31 The referendum of 1 December 1991: all-Ukrainian = republican
- 11:09 Continuity: the uninterrupted existence of the state in international law (Iran, Ethiopia)
- 14:07 The Ukrainian SSR as a "quasi-state"; a co-founder of the UN in 1945; the Roosevelt episode
- 16:12 Ukraine is the successor of the Ukrainian SSR, but not its continuity
- 19:37 Why states recognized Ukraine after the referendum, not after the Act
- 21:58 The all-Union referendum of 17 March 1991 and its nullification
- 24:40 Acquisition of citizenship: transfer, option, filiation, naturalization
- 31:33 The 2020 Russian Constitution: "continuator of the USSR" only in part, not in territory