Improving legislation
12-02-2009
On 12 February, the Permanent Representative of Kazakhstan to the OSCE, Ambassador Kairat Abdrakhmanov, informed the Organization’s Permanent Council of recent improvements in Kazakhstan’s legislation.
The legislative package includes amendments and additions to the law on political parties aimed at further liberalizing the legislation on political parties, simplifying their registration procedures, and increasing the transparency of the political system in the country. Through the amendments, the enumeration census for political parties was decreased.
President Nursultan Nazarbayev also signed the law on amendments and additions to the Kazakhstan media law. The amendments are designed to further improve the legislation on the media, and as such considerably simplify administrative barriers for print and electronic media and enhance the professional rights of journalists. In general, the law responds to the interests of Kazakhstan’s society in the sphere of development of a competitive and flexible media environment in the country.
Amendments to the legislation on elections make it possible to avoid a single-party Parliament through legal provisions stipulating that the political party receiving the second largest number of votes will be seated in Parliament even if it has not reached a threshold.
The new legislation on local self-government is intended to further improve the activity of the local bodies of self-government, and local representative and executive bodies.
The Ambassador stressed that that these laws had been elaborated by the Government and the Parliament in close cooperation with civil society, journalists, international experts and other stakeholders. Mr. Abdrakhmanov expressed gratitude to the ODIHR experts for their contribution to the elaboration of the draft laws.
He also informed the Council about the ratification of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that would further strengthen legal protections and improve the human rights situation in Kazakhstan.
“As regards the draft law on religions, which had given rise to so many concerns and so much criticism, I would like to inform the Permanent Council that yesterday the Constitutional Council of the Republic of Kazakhstan, to which the draft law had been forwarded by the President for comment a month ago, declared it unconstitutional”, the Ambassador said.
“We consider all these measures to be yet another very important step in our determined progress towards political improvement and democratic modernization in Kazakhstan, and we count on the continuing support of all our partners, including the participating states and the OSCE institutions”, he stressed.
