Kyrgyzstan has a constitution. They just can't find it.

Kyrgyzstan might not know where its constitution is.
(Image credit: VYACHESLAV OSELEDKO/AFP/Getty Images)

The central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan approved its current constitution just six years ago, in 2010, and on Wednesday, the Kyrgyz parliament was debating whether to allow a new referendum this year to consider a constitutional amendment. In the process, the representatives asked about the location of the original document, and that's when they found out no one knows where it is.

There are copies, of course, so it's not like the content is unknown, but the original's location is a mystery. Justice Minister Jyldyz Mambetalieva told the parliamentarians she believes the constitution is in the president's office, but the president says it's with the justice minister. "That raises the question: Where is the original?" a representative of the president helpfully summarized.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.