Сontemporary forms of protection of the constitution: comparative legal aspects

Abstract

Systematic analysis of protection forms of the constitution allows to identify legal tools that can be applied in order to prevent encroachments on the constitutional values or in the commission of such an offense or to identify the real threat. Up to now there is no a single approach to understanding of protection of the constitution, its relationship with the protection, system of its forms and so on. There remain unclear regularities that have their influence on different protection forms of the constitution in foreign countries as well as the consistency and adequacy of the use of such forms in Ukraine. Recent research and publications analysis. Scientists name various forms of protection of the constitution. Approaches of scientists that give their lists differ very much. Hence there is no necessity in talking about some constant regarding this matter. Some aspects of the issue that is related to the system of protection forms of the constitution found their reflection in the works of local and foreign scientists such as Y.G. Barabash, M.V. Vitruk, I.V. Koreyba, K.O. Pavshuk, P.B. Stetsyuk, K. Hesse, T. Y. Habriyeva, V.E. Chyrkin and others. Paper objective. The objectives of the paper are: clarification of the nature of the protection of the constitution and what means or what forms and what subjects it should be implemented by; the comparison of the experience of foreign countries regarding the issue and determination of the reasons for which different countries use different protection forms of the constitutions; expression of suggestions regarding legislation improvement in regards to specific protection forms of the Constitution of Ukraine. Paper main body. Countries with established democracy traditionally use a smaller set of protection forms of the constitution and the concept of "protection of the constitution" itself is almost not applied. The opposite approach is inherent to countries emerging from totalitarian and authoritarian regimes including Ukraine. Ukraine should approach conceptually this problem especially in nowadays conditions as far as there is a real threat to the territorial integrity and independence. Conclusions of the research. Protection forms of the constitution are in a certain system therefore they can be divided into: – constructive forms of protection (a special procedure for amending the constitution and its adoption, a prohibition of the restriction and distortion of the fundamental rights by the law); – blocking forms (president's veto, the veto of the upper house of parliament, etc.); – repressive forms (a prohibition of political parties and other associations, divestment, lustration restrictions); – constitutional responsibility of the authority (president’s impeachment, dissolution of parliament, etc.); – preliminary and subsequent constitutional control; – extreme forms of protection: the right to revolt, emergency legislation, emergency and martial law.