Although several other member parliaments ratified the treaty during the year, pro-constitution leaders in Europe were forced to slow down, take stock, and ponder how to reconnect with the people who opposed the planned changes.
Having decided to spend their first moments in power proclaiming their devotion to the Constitution, Republican leaders might at least have read the whole thing.
After the rejection of the constitution, European leaders decreed a "period of reflection" to settle fundamental questions about the direction of their club.
The debate today made clear that there are still many hurdles to the adoption of a final constitution, which leaders said would take place sometime before June of next year.
As the Governing Council tries to define federalist powers in the interim constitution, Kurdish leaders will probably argue for the right to keep the pesh merga, especially given their memory of mass killings of the Kurds under Mr. Hussein's rule.
When voters in France and the Netherlands voted down the original E.U. constitution, European leaders assembled to give the treaty a cosmetic makeover, changed its name and guaranteed that the mistake of putting a matter of this magnitude to a public vote would not be repeated.
While God was left out of the preamble to the United States Constitution, the leaders of the Confederate States of America made sure to invoke the power of the divine in their own constitution -- making it clear from the start they saw Christianity as an integral part of their new union of slaveholders.
Within its Constitution, the leaders of Bosnia and Herzegovina reconfirm their commitment to ensure equal rights of all children of this country regardless of their culture, religion, race, social or any other status.
In accordance with the Labour constitution, Deputy Leader Harriet Harman took over as Acting Leader and Leader of the Opposition.
Mr Nazarbayev is enshrined in Kazakhstan's constitution as "leader of the nation".
