Ulaanbaatar
Today marks 30th anniversary of the adoption of democratic Constitution of Mongolia
Politics
Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. Today marks the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the democratic Constitution of Mongolia.
Mongolia has had four constitutions in its history with each of its discussions held in 1924, 1940, 1960, and 1992 respectively. While the earlier constitutions were revolved around the Marxist ideology, the new 1992 Constitution is considered democratic as it protects the common interest of the citizens of Mongolia without discrimination of social class and ideology. Thus, the day of January 13 came to be marked as Constitution Day each year.
For the new democratic Constitution of Mongolia, discussion took place among over 430 deputies of the People’s Great Khural, and over 50 members of the State Baga Khural over the course of 75 days. A public discussion was also held for the new Constitution, which involved about 75 percent of 1.2 million citizens, the total population of Mongolia at the time, and over 200 thousand suggestions were received on the matter.
The new Constitution of Mongolia established the legal framework for a balanced system for state power, setting the base procedure, rights, and obligations of the State Great Khural (parliament), the institution of the State Head - the President of Mongolia, the Government of Mongolia, and the judiciary.
At the time, as the main contributor to drafting the democratic Constitution, State Honored Lawyer B.Chimid had highlighted that further amendments will be necessary in the future with changes in society. This indeed happened to be the case, which resulted in making amendments to seven articles in the year of 2000. Afterwards, working groups in charge of making further amendments to the Constitution were established seven times throughout the years of 2008-2019 - yet, the bills were not discussed by the parliament.
However, most recently, 62 parliament members presented a bill to amend the Constitution of Mongolia on June 6, 2019. Following the discussions that took place at the parliament’s plenary sessions as well as at meetings of Standing Committees for a total of 105.9 hours, the finalized bill was approved on November 14, 2019. The amendments covered 19 sections and 36 clauses of 70 articles, which made up 28.5 percent of the Constitution. These changes ensured the balance and monitoring of governance, improved the stability of the Government and the responsibility of the Parliament, and were aimed at enhancing independent decision-making at local governing bodies.
