National Tradition or Foreign Patterns? Sources of Inspiration for Finnish Constitutionalism at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century – A Comparative Approach

Abstract

Finland became a sovereign subject of international law on 6 December 1917. One of the manifestations of state-building is the adoption of a Fundamental Law, which is generally given the form of a constitution. In the political history of Finland, there is a normative act that is referred to as that constituting the foundations of the system of the independent Finnish state. Indeed, this was not the only act comprehensively regulating constitutional matters in the state. Thus, the constitution of the newly established state was not unitary in nature, but complex. Moreover, it was initially based partly on foreign normative acts, taken over from the period of dependence, that is, Swedish and Russian acts. This article discusses the historical inspirations for Finnish constitutionalism. The following research questions were asked in the course of the research that preceded the article: 1) What was the constitutional heritage of Finland’s initial period of independence?; 2) Whose constitutional experiences were the inspiration for the sources of Finnish constitutional law?; 3) What is the specific nature of Finnish constitutional arrangements?