The public presentation of the Scientific and Practical Commentary on the Constitution was attended by Chairman of the Constitutional Court Petr Miklashevich, Deputy Head of the Administration of the President of the Republic of Belarus Olga Chupris, other members of the team of authors, including judges of the Constitutional Court, deputies of the House of Representatives, members of the Council of the Republic, as well as heads of state bodies and organisations, prominent legal scholars.

In his speech Chairman of the Constitutional Court noted the following.

The Scientific and Practical Commentary on the Constitution was prepared in pursuance of the instruction of the President of the Republic of Belarus dated 1 April 2022 in order to clarify the constitutional and legal meaning and content of constitutional principles and norms.

The updated Constitution is the key to the progressive constitutional development of the Republic of Belarus for the long term. It defines the model of the modern Belarusian state: the state is based on the will of the people, expresses the will of the people, and operates in the interests of the people. This constitutional guideline obliges state bodies, officials, socio-political institutions in their creative activities to contribute in every possible way to the achievement of the most important constitutional goals: ensuring peace and civil harmony, social justice and well-being of citizens, the inviolability of democracy, sovereignty, independence and prosperity of the Republic of Belarus.

The Constitution - the Basic Law of the state - is the basis of national law: its principles and norms serve as a starting point, ensure the unity and harmonious development of all components of the legal system.

The Constitution, having a direct regulatory impact on public relations, acts as the main criterion not only for legislative but also law enforcement activities, ensuring the constitutionalisation of all social relations and the effectiveness of constitutional and legal mechanisms for the protection of the rights and freedoms of individuals.

Currently, it is necessary to consistently and purposefully form a constitutionally oriented legal consciousness of citizens, lawyers, and state officials, which should be based on a deeply meaningful perception of the fundamental values and principles of the Constitution.

The Constitution is a political and legal act with special properties and helps translate into the language of current legislation, legal ideology and real politics the ideals of the individual, society and state, the existing system of traditional national values of historical, cultural and spiritual heritage.

Modern constitutional development confirms that fundamental constitutional provisions, along with normative and legal content, have a high level of political, ideological, moral, spiritual, and sociocultural principles.

At the same time, the Basic Law of our country has a high degree of generality, a certain abstractness, and semantic richness of constitutional and legal structures. The purpose of the Commentary is to explain each normative provision of the Constitution, a comprehensive analysis of the further development of constitutional provisions in laws and other normative legal acts, a comprehensive analysis of the mechanisms for implementing the norms of the Constitution, legislative, procedural, and organisational guarantees.

Today we can state that a team of highly qualified authors has coped with the task: significant work has been done to, on the one hand, with a high degree of legal accuracy, on the other hand, with a high degree of accessibility, explain to citizens the constitutional provisions our society, all citizens of our country, lives and develops in accordance therewith.

It is symbolic that the Constitutional Commission worked in the building of the National Library of Belarus from March to August 2021 to prepare amendments to the Constitution. Here, in this Round Hall, 11 meetings of the Commission were held, and specific proposals for amending the Constitution were developed. At the republican referendum on 27 February 2022 the proposed changes and additions to the Constitution were adopted.

Currently, the process of implementing the updated Constitution continues: the development of constitutional provisions in the norms of laws is taking place, representative bodies of power are being formed on a new constitutional basis.

Of course, for the Constitution to really work, it must be known and understood, it is important that citizens and officials have a conscious perception of constitutional provisions, which should be a constitutional guideline in activities in order to further strengthen the constitutional legal order, establishing the Republic of Belarus as a democratic social state based on the rule of law.