On January 17, 2022, the Belarusian Institute of Strategic Research (BISR) held an expert seminar "The image of the future through the prism of the draft Constitution of the Republic of Belarus". The discussion was attended by Vadim Ipatov, Director of the National Centre of Legislation and Legal Research, representatives of the Council of the Republic, the National Academy of Sciences, the Ministry of Justice, the Belarusian State University, the Belarusian State University of Economics, BISR analysts.
On opening the event, the BISR Director Oleg Makarov noted the unprecedented interest of the Belarusian society in discussing the draft Constitution, the involvement of broad segments of the population in this process: "We see how active today's society, opinion leaders, bloggers, deputies of various levels are in explaining and expressing their viewpoints about the importance of constitutional construction." The BISR Director also stressed the special importance of the updated basic law for the prosperous future of Belarus, its creative potential.
In turn, the National Centre of Legislation and Legal Research Director Vadim Ipatov noted that according to the values that are priority for the country residents, the image of the future of Belarus is seen as peaceful and stable: "For each citizen to be confident in his future, for our children to grow up in a peaceful, calm environment, for our economy to work. And for this we need a Basic law that establishes the legal basis for further development of the Republic of Belarus."
The participants of the expert seminar noted the painstaking large-scale work done by the state and society, the expert community, sociologists and professional lawyers at the most important historical moment for the country. "Submitting the draft of the updated Constitution of the Republic of Belarus for public discussion was preceded by a lot of work on collecting, analyzing and summarizing documents and expectations of citizens", Svetlana Aleinikova, BISR analyst, said. As a result of the enormous work, the draft Constitution has become a conventional expression of key values and demands of the Belarusian society.
The analysis of the image of the future of Belarus in the context of global trends made it possible to consider constitutional transformations in the development paradigm. Attention was focused on the possibilities of improving the efficiency of public administration, the use of modern forms of communication with the population, state digitalization and accessing new quality of interaction between society and government.
Summarising the outcomes of the seminar, the event participants agreed on the main thing that the adoption of the amended Constitution of the Republic of Belarus will become a new starting point which will set guidelines for society and the state, determine the prospects for the country's development for decades to come.
