Is it the joy of the fact that "God" is written?
(struggle for the preamble of the Constitution)

Dear friends, one moment! The preamble is being voted on as a whole, since it raises no objection in its parts.

SYROTA M.D. The commission proposes to support the preamble as a whole, esteemed colleagues.

CHAIRMAN. One moment, we still have...

SYROTA M.D. I ask you to support it as a whole /Noise in the hall/.

CHAIRMAN. Withdraw it from the vote.

The following thesis has not gained the required number of votes: "Aware of our responsibility before God, past, present and future generations".

An editorial clarification?

The floor is given to Deputy Yavorivskyi.

And pass this clarification at once to the legal department and to the Temporary Special Commission.

YAVORIVSKYI V.O., chairman of a subcommission of the Commission of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on human rights, national minorities and inter-ethnic relations /Svitlovodsk electoral district, Kirovohrad region/. Esteemed colleagues! We have reached a compromise, and I congratulate you on it. But it will be far more precise and better put to write: "the right of the nation to self-determination, supported by the whole Ukrainian people". A brilliant phrase! No one will have any claims at all! /Noise in the hall/.

CHAIRMAN. We know how hard amendments are to carry... /Noise in the hall/.

No, I ask you! Such amendments are hard to carry. I shall put your proposal to the vote. Please, the proposal of Deputy Yavorivskyi is being voted on.

"For" - 212.

That is, there is a simple majority, but a constitutional one is needed.

"Aware of our responsibility before God, past, present and future generations". This norm received 227 votes /Noise in the hall/.

I have it written down that there were 227 votes.

SYROTA M.D. 227.

CHAIRMAN. And there was voted on here the proposal of Deputy Ratushnyi, which he did in fact later withdraw, having added the word "God" there — 205 votes. Without the word "God". Perhaps God will reconcile us if we do not write Him in?..

SYROTA M.D. No, for that we should have to vote for a deletion — 300 votes, esteemed people's deputies.

CHAIRMAN. Since with us, well, all the same there are different gods, for there are a hundred-odd nationalities, you yourselves understand...

SYROTA M.D. Everyone has his own God.

CHAIRMAN. Though God is one, only different people understand Him differently... /Noise in the hall/.

All the same I shall first put to the vote the thesis in the commission's wording.

SYROTA M.D. Esteemed colleagues! The commission earnestly asks you to support this formulation.

CHAIRMAN.

"For" - 258.

Let us have this wording: "Aware of our responsibility before past, present and future generations". This is the subject matter of the Constitution. Let us all the same...

SYROTA M.D. Then we must vote for the deletion of the word "God", otherwise we are violating the procedure for the consideration and adoption of articles.

CHAIRMAN. Dear Mykhailo Dmytrovych, I remind you that the Standing Orders provide for the voting of amendments, not of deletions.

SYROTA M.D. There is no amendment to delete such a word.

CHAIRMAN. There is such an amendment, I have just quoted it.

SYROTA M.D. That amendment has been taken into account.

CHAIRMAN. I put to the vote the version without the word "God".

SYROTA M.D. What is it about the word "God" that makes you so nervous, esteemed colleagues? God be with you, let us vote on the preamble.

CHAIRMAN. Attention, the following proposal is being voted on: not to mention "God", but to write only of responsibility before the generations.

"For" - 228.

I have one more proposal: let us vote on two norms. One — "aware of our responsibility before God...", and the second — "aware of our responsibility before past, present and future..."

SYROTA M.D. Well, what is going on here at all, then? What are we voting on? This is the Constitution! And the commission proposed a concrete norm which gained 258 votes.

CHAIRMAN. Mykhailo Dmytrovych...

SYROTA M.D. That is right, we voted 258 votes for this. And for its not being there 226 votes were cast.

CHAIRMAN. Deputy Popescu, who wrote the word "God" into this norm, the floor is yours, please.

POPESCU I.V., chairman of a subcommission of the Commission of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on human rights, national minorities and inter-ethnic relations /Hlyboka electoral district, Chernivtsi region/. Esteemed Oleksandr Oleksandrovych, esteemed colleagues! If someone does not like the word "God", then let him bring in a proposal to delete this word. I personally shall not do so.

Thank you for your attention.

A VOICE FROM THE HALL. Quite right, quite right! He cannot withdraw it.

SYROTA M.D. And he is not withdrawing this amendment.

CHAIRMAN. I ask you, calm down.

SYROTA M.D. Well, it is not "devil" that is written here, but

it is written "God", esteemed colleagues! /Noise in the hall/.

CHAIRMAN. Once again I ask you, calm down. I demand silence in the hall! Once again I address all the deputies — I demand silence in the hall and I remind those who bring in proposals outside the Standing Orders: I shall not put to the vote a single proposal to delete this or that norm from the text, since it was not brought in in accordance with the Standing Orders. And the Standing Orders provide for the voting of proposals. If the main one is not carried, then the alternatives are voted on. And please do not bring in such proposals, they are destructive in themselves /Noise in the hall/. I am looking for proposals that have not been voted on, and I shall put them to the vote /Noise in the hall/.

There is a proposal to vote on the column voted on at the first reading /Noise in the hall/. Do not come up to me while the sitting is being conducted, I beg you! I have only just said so, and you come up here...

What about as a whole, for there is one more norm not voted on? "Aware of our responsibility before present and future generations..." — that is how it was written in the text voted on by the Verkhovna Rada at the first reading.

I put this proposal too to the vote.

"For" - 248.

SYROTA M.D. Esteemed colleagues, let us support this norm and let us vote on the preamble as a whole. There is nothing here of the dreadful thing that you imagine. There is not!

CHAIRMAN. The next norm: "guided by the Act of Declaration of the Independence of Ukraine of 24 August 1991, approved by the national vote of 1 December 1991".

I put it to the vote.

SYROTA M.D. The commission asks you to support this norm.

CHAIRMAN.

"For" - 347.

"We affirm this Constitution — the Fundamental Law of Ukraine". 313 votes were gained.

By the Standing Orders I am obliged to put it as a whole without the norm "aware of our responsibility..."

SYROTA M.D. No, that cannot be done, Oleksandr Oleksandrovych.

CHAIRMAN. That is what the Standing Orders require.

SYROTA M.D. It cannot be voted on as a whole.

CHAIRMAN. Please, think about it; and if not, we shall look for a compromise within this norm. One moment! Once before we were fortunate with Pylypchuk.

Once again the floor is given to Deputy Pylypchuk.

PYLYPCHUK V.M. Esteemed colleagues! We began not badly — with compromises. Let us consolidate and develop these compromises. There is still a part of the deputies who acknowledge God. But this does not mean necessarily the Christian or the Muslim or the Jewish God. God is absolute truth, it is universal reason. And now, if one approaches it from the standpoint of pluralism, then no one ought to forbid or to compel belief or unbelief. And if there is a part of the people and a part of the deputies who want a legal norm to be written down concerning their responsibility before God, then I think that the other part, which does not acknowledge the existence of God, ought all the same to give them the chance to feel that responsibility by writing in the norm. I would therefore ask you to go for a compromise and write it in. Whoever will feel responsibility before God — he will; and whoever will not — he will not.

CHAIRMAN. Petro Mykolaiovych, perhaps God be with him — with God? /Noise in the hall/. Another opinion? Please, I shall put it to the vote. I want to reach a compromise. Speak, Deputy Symonenko.

SYMONENKO P.M. Esteemed colleagues! I should like to address you all the same with the following request. The point is that no one forbids believing or not believing in God. And every one of us, under the other articles which are also written down here in the draft, has the right to freedom of conscience, and everyone can indeed express his attitude to one position or another.

But we are speaking of the preamble of the Constitution. If we lay down here a norm concerning responsibility before past, present and future generations, then we take upon ourselves responsibility before concrete people. And when it is a matter of a person being able calmly to make use, under this Constitution, of the norm on freedom of conscience, then let him make use of it. But this is a norm of the Fundamental Law. Many of you understand what is at issue. No one forbids, no one interferes in the personal affairs of each concrete person.

The position is this: to protect the person. Unfortunately, today one observes a confrontation between one confession and another. And in this situation we propose: let us calmly write down the norm that we are responsible before past, present and future generations. It is clear before whom we are responsible: before our parents, before our children, before our grandchildren. That is what is at issue. Irrespective of religious confession.

CHAIRMAN. Esteemed colleagues! Two opinions have been voiced. One moment! I shall put it to the vote now. And on the basis of this discussion a compromise proposal has occurred to me. Consider that God is love. Is that so? The form in which love is manifested is the action of conscience. Let us perhaps write it thus: "aware of our responsibility before God, before our conscience, past, present and future generations"?

SYROTA M.D. Conscience is a good thing, but it does not replace the word "God".

CHAIRMAN. Is it more precise than "before our conscience"?

SYROTA M.D. But that is an altogether different philosophical category, Oleksandr Oleksandrovych. What is meant is not a concrete faith. What is meant is responsibility not only before future and past generations, but also before the higher powers which are with us today and which we see among us even now.

CHAIRMAN. I put the compromise proposal of Deputy Pylypchuk to the vote.

SYROTA M.D. Pylypchuk's? Which one exactly? So that we at least know what we are voting on!

CHAIRMAN. I put to the vote what Deputy Pylypchuk proposed.

"For" - 176.

SYROTA M.D. I do not know what we voted for.

CHAIRMAN. The proposal of Deputy Symonenko is put to the vote once more. "Aware of our responsibility before past, present and future generations". Please vote.

"For" - 224.

That does not carry either... There was also the proposal of Deputy Boiko: "Aware of our responsibility before the Most High, past, present and future generations". I put it to the vote.

"For" - 198.

SYROTA M.D. It is not clear, what is this? God is precisely both Allah and Krishna and Christ — all these are symbols of God.

CHAIRMAN. Here too there are not enough votes. Let us listen to a woman.

Kateryna Tymofiivna, please.

VASHCHUK K.T., member of the Commission of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on foreign affairs and relations with the CIS /Horokhiv electoral district, Volyn region/. Esteemed colleagues! I address you all: look at the complex problems we have come through and reached agreement on. And here we are on the threshold of adopting the first part, which has been a stumbling block. Since we have acknowledged that the right of the nation to self-determination is supported by the whole people, then let us support both those for whom there is no God and those for whom there is. For those for whom there is a God, there will be responsibility before God; for those for whom there is no God — before past and future generations. Why does this so divide us? We lived 70 years without God, now we live with God, the President takes his oath on the Bible and on the Constitution. Why is it that today we so want to throw out the word "God"? Why such disrespect for believers, why? Let us go for such a compromise.

CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Understood.

SYROTA M.D. Understood. And in other constitutions this word is there.

CHAIRMAN. One moment! There is one more compromise solution. In our Constitution there will be a norm "freedom of conscience", yes? That is, everyone is free to profess or not to profess. Therefore in the general text it would be possible to unite, so to speak, and to reconcile those who believe and those who live by conscience but do not believe in God. I mean to do this in the following way /this proposal was brought in by me/: let us write it thus: "aware of our responsibility before God, our own conscience, past, present and future generations".

SYROTA M.D. That would be very fine.

CHAIRMAN. I put this proposal to the vote /Noise in the hall/.

SYROTA M.D. I ask you to support it.

"For" - 287.

In this way the wishes both of the people's deputies and of the inhabitants of Ukraine — of our people — would be taken into account. It is necessary to say both about conscience and about God and about the future...

CHAIRMAN. One moment! Volodymyr Saveliiovych has come in and insists that it be put to the vote once more. So I put this proposal to the vote once more. Please /Noise in the hall/.

SYROTA M.D. A request to support it, esteemed colleagues!

CHAIRMAN. Support it! The atheists are voting for conscience, conscience exists too.

SYROTA M.D. Not a universal formula...

"For" - 285.

CHAIRMAN. On the motives. Let the specialist in philosophy Volodymyr Saveliiovych give the argument. Please.

MULIAVA V.S., member of the Commission of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on questions of defence and state security /Kalush electoral district, Ivano-Frankivsk region/. Esteemed colleagues! What is happening here with us is the absolutising of the very concept "God". The thing is that there is, for example, a pantheistic understanding of God — God is understood as nature. In the age of the Middle Ages, in the most terrible age, there was the current of nominalism, which considered God to be merely a name. Therefore for some God is conscience, for others it is the force of nature, for others again, perhaps, the whole kin is devout. That is, the concept "God" exists not only in a strictly religious understanding but also in a philosophical one, and embraces that which you consider the highest for yourselves, that to which you incline. And with such an understanding both the left and the right, both Communists and Socialists, can vote for it. I should like you to understand this category rightly: God is all that which helps us, properly speaking, to be human beings on this earth.

SYROTA M.D. Esteemed colleagues! It is precisely for that reason that the commission wrote the word "God" with a capital letter. In all the districts there are believing people, let us support them.

CHAIRMAN. Mykhailo Dmytrovych, God is always written with a capital letter.

SYROTA M.D. Not everyone, unfortunately, writes the word "God" with a capital letter.

CHAIRMAN. Deputy Boldyriev.

BOLDYRIEV Yu.O. Esteemed colleagues, esteemed Chairman! I think that in fact we shall hardly manage to agree with one another's arguments. And therefore I have the following proposal.

First of all, esteemed Communists and Socialists, I assure you that God exists. And not only God in the atheistic sense, but God as a person. And if anyone wishes it, I am ready to become your guide on the road to Him /Noise in the hall/. But at the same time I remind everyone — atheists and believers alike — that it is said in the Bible: "Take not the name of the Lord thy God in vain". Thus there are grounds for not mentioning Him in vain, because the Constitution is after all not the Bible,

Therefore I propose the following way: to vote now with "God" and to vote without "God", and then by rating to put the proposal that gains the greater number of votes to the whole hall and to agree on it. Because in reality both the one and the other are in fact the same for the human heart, for the heart of a believer.

CHAIRMAN. Esteemed colleagues! No, that is enough! I address those who do not want the word "God" to be mentioned here. I too voted against it several times, but now I incline to the position of those deputies who say: "We believe. and we want to bear responsibility also before..."

One moment! Others do not believe; let us say that grace has not overtaken them, as it has not overtaken me, and so I look on all this calmly. But my own conscience means a great deal to me. and therefore I should like it written down that some bear responsibility before God, and all before their conscience, before future and present generations. Let us go for this variant. If it gains a majority of votes but not 300, then we shall vote on the thesis without it. After that I shall put to the vote the preamble with the norm that gained the greater number of votes. Is that clear?

Once again I put to the vote the proposal, already discussed, in the following wording: "Aware of our responsibility before God, our own conscience, past, present and future generations..." Please vote.

"For" - 292.

Now I put to the vote the version without the word "God". I ask you to support this proposal. And "conscience" remains.

"For" - 190.

I put to the vote the whole preamble in the following wording... Attention please! Am I obliged to do so by the Standing Orders?

SYROTA M.D. You are, because all the parts are there.

CHAIRMAN. One moment. I have no right to under the Standing Orders.

SYROTA M.D. If a separate part is to be removed, then it cannot be done, but here all of them are there. I am saying that we can put even the text of the Constitution as a whole to the vote and vote on it...

CHAIRMAN. I have no right. I may put the preamble without this part as a whole.

SYROTA M.D. Then that is a violation of the Standing Orders altogether.

CHAIRMAN. They insist on voting on this norm once more. Well, let us write "власним сумлінням", if "совість" does not suit.

SYROTA M.D. "Совість" suits. Why not? "Совість" suits perfectly! "Совість" is a very good thing!

CHAIRMAN. Attention please! Deputy Boldyriev brought in a proposal that the norm which gains the greater number of votes be put to the vote once more. I shall put it now.

But I have one proposal. Please, let us all the same not replace the word "совість" with "сумління". "Сумління" is, you know, a rather refined word, a literary one, whereas "совість" a man either has or has not. Let us vote in that way. So then, "aware of our responsibility before God, our own conscience, past, present and future generations..." Let us support this proposal. There is room enough here for everyone.

SYROTA M.D. A request to support this proposal. A universal form. I ask you to support it.

CHAIRMAN. Support it.

"For" - 299.

There is a proposal, by way of exception, to vote on this norm not by roll call. I put it to the vote. Please vote.

"For" - 282.

So it must be voted on by roll call after all.

SYROTA M.D. Esteemed colleagues! Perhaps we shall introduce into the Standing Orders a norm that if there are 299 votes, then it is voted on again? /Noise in the hall/. Let us vote once more by roll call.

CHAIRMAN. The deputies insist on a roll-call vote. 299 voted "for", and 300 are needed. Have people come into the hall? Take your seats, please. Deputy Starovoitova did not manage to vote. She raised her hand to say that she too is "for", but this must be reflected in the record.

Once again I put the full wording to the vote. Please vote, support it.

"For" - 305 / Applause /.

Is the applause joy that "God" has been written in, or that this norm has been adopted?

The preamble as a whole is put to the vote. The preamble is being voted on as a whole!

"For" - 325.

A festal wish on the Day of the Constitution: that the citizens of our long-suffering state may in all their intentions and deeds be aware of their responsibility before God, their own conscience, past, present and future generations! Honour and remembrance to the people's deputies of 1996, who then took a principled position concerning "responsibility before God".