?
Постоянство в изменчивости: об истинных причинах неотразимой привлекательности конституций экзотических стран: Рецензия на книгу: The Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Constitutions / ed. by R.Albert, D.O’Brien, S.Wheatle. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020
In the great international literature on comparative constitutional law, main theoretical observations
and constructions normally been made on the ground of principle Western models interpretation.
That is quite natural because the experience of established democracies in their historical and political
implications formed the basis and resource of inspiration for many new nations looking forward to create
the similar forms of constitutional government in spite of various cultural and social difficulties.
But this approach substitute the problem by its ideal solution sometimes ignoring the whole bulk of
emotions, hesitations, exaggerated hops, disappointments and interests, which are represented in regions
and countries of so-called “periphery zone” of legal development acutely pressed to search their
own strategy of constitutional modernization in quite different cultural and political context. This
problem becomes the central point in the monumental work under review — “The Oxford handbook
of Caribbean Constitutions”. The book providing a solid ground for the complex academic deliberation
of one of such regions — a very specific group of countries, which formerly were part of the great European
colonial empires, recently proclaimed their independence and stay in a permanent process of constitutional self-determination trying to find their proper way in legal globalization. Carefully summarizing
the materials and ideas of this collective work, the author of this review article discusses
some general conceptual items of this type of constitutionalism: the role of common culture and history
in pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial legal development; the impact of “colonial legacy” in
formation of post-independence constitutionalism of respective countries. He reconsiders the place of
indigenous forms and imported imperial constitutional design in the establishment of the new constitutionalism
and administrative governance; the specific trend to hybridization of different legal traditions,
norms and institutes in process of their evolution and selection through constitutional amendments,
constitutional jurisprudence and projects of reforms. In concluding part of this article the
author summing up his vision of continuity and ruptures in legal development balance of Caribbean
region in comparison with Post-Soviet region’s current constitutional transformation.