Constitution of Azerbaijan
constitution
The Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan (Azerbaijani: Azərbaycan Respublikasının Konstitusiyası) was adopted on 12 November 1995 by popular referendum. This was the first Constitution of independent Azerbaijan.
The first Constitution of independent Azerbaijan consists of 5 chapters, 12 sections, and 158 articles. It was amended on 24 August 2002 and again on 18 March 2009. It carries the "highest legal force" in Azerbaijan as per article 147. The most recent amendments to the Constitution were approved after the constitutional referendum held on 26 September 2016. In 2002, 31 amendments were made to 22 articles; in 2009, 41 amendments were made to 29 articles; and in 2016, 23 articles were amended and 6 new articles were added.
History
The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic that was founded in 1918 and existed for 23 months until 1920, was unable to adopt its constitution. Therefore, the history of constitution building in Azerbaijan generally starts from the period of Azerbaijan being part of Soviet Union. The first Constitution of the Azerbaijan SSR was adopted in 1921 and was in accordance with the Constitution of USSR. The last Constitution of Azerbaijan SSR was adopted on 21 April 1978 and also was in line with the form of the USSR Constitution.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Constitution of Azerbaijan” as constitution. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as constitution. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q724228. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1995, 2002, 2009 and 2016.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Constitution of Azerbaijan”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Constitution of Azerbaijan primary sources, Constitution of Azerbaijan archive and Constitution research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Constitution of Azerbaijan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.