EURO-ATLANTIC TRADITIONS OF THE CONSTITUTIONALIZATION OF THE STATE-TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION OF UKRAINIAN LANDS (ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE DRAFT CONSTITUTION OF THE UKRAINIAN PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF UKRAINE BY O. EICHELMAN)

Abstract

The article presents the results of the study, which are complex. The content of the article is related to the problem of defining federalism and its structure. The institution of federalism is considered from a legal point of view. The authors, analyzing the structure of federalism, determine that its models are largely due to the culturally, historically, geographically deterministic type of relationship (center and regions, power and society). The study of Ukrainian federal political culture is put forward as a priority. The authors took into account certain aspects of federalist political culture when analyzing the domestic experience of federalism. In particular, the “Draft Constitution – Basic State Laws – the Ukrainian People’s Republic” by Otto Eichelman, a state and public figure, legal scholar, was studied. It was established that among the general projects of that time, only the draft constitution of the UPR by O. Eichelman proposed the transformation of Ukraine into a sovereign independent federal state. The scientist considered the federation a real way to move away from the imperial past, democratize local self-government and decentralize power. As a legal theorist, Otto Eichelmann leaned towards the German version of federalism, which in the second half of the nineteenth century realized as nationalist. According to the form of state government, the UPR was to be a democratic republic with a federal state system. It envisaged the formation of independent administrative units – “lands”, the foundation of which was the rural and urban community. The state organization was divided into two parts: federal and land. Obviously, each of the Lands had the right on its territory to sovereignly dispose of all matters that were not subject to the competence of the federal level. The peculiarity of the constitutional project was the division of powers not between the three traditional branches of government, but five – the constituent power as the highest power in the state; legislative – in the form of a bicameral parliament, executive, judicial and controlling power – federal state control. The court and financial control had complete independence from the executive and legislative authorities. O. Eichelman’s ideas on the principles of state organization and functioning of Ukrainian civil society are recommended to be used in modern state-building processes.