Programska knjižica - Hrvatsko filozofsko društvo

CONSTITUTIONAL PREAMBLES – INDICATORS OF NEW
VALUE AND IDEOLOGICAL BASIS IN THE
CONSTITUTIONS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN EUROPEAN
STATES IN THE POST-COMMUNIST ERA
Strong democratisation waves, which spread throughout Europe in the
period of turn from 1980s to 1990s, were predominantly determined by the
promotion of new social and ideological values, essentially contrasting the
then fundamental versions of socialist system. From the value and ideological
perspectives, those new political orders have undoubtedly been built on the
mechanism models of the constitutional and state institutions created throughout
the centuries in the Western European democracies, as well as the United
States legal and political system. Subsequent to appearance of the first opposition
political groups, institutionally still “located” within the framework of the
vanishing socialist legal system, the first political parties emerged, while the
change in the general social and legal values reached their peak in the form of
adoption of the new constitutions. Middle European and South European factual
perspectives are quite different, but sooner or later all those states began to
build their significantly renewed legal and political system.
It is interesting to study and compare new constitutions which, along with
the basic renewed and institutionally adjusted provisions on human rights and
fundamental freedoms and constitutional mechanisms built by and large upon
the Western European models, incorporate in their preambles a variety of terms
and substance. This non-abiding segment of a constitutional text is an interesting
demonstration by their makers of the fundamental constitutional and political
goals. The references there are often made to the elements of the statehood
tradition, basic state values and regularly to a specific problem related to the
state in question serving the pragmatic purpose.
In his paper, the author presents a comparative analysis of the basic content
of the constitutional preambles of states in the Southeastern Europe, emphasizing
in particular the new constitutional heritage of states which are the
former Yugoslav republics.
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