Kazakhstan's Democratic Forces Forum

Kazakh pressure group calls for reform of constitution.

Source: Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency, Almaty, in Russian 1102 gmt 18 Mar 02/BBC Monitoring. Text of report by Interfax- Kazakhstan news agency

A Kazakh pressure group comprising well-known public figures, scientists and journalists is starting to make joint efforts to support constitutional reform in the country.

Members of the pressure group stated at a news conference in [the former southern Kazakh capital] Almaty today that the current constitution, which was adopted in Kazakhstan in 1995, does not match up to the demands that are made of the state's main law.

In particular, in their view, the current constitution does not meet the principles of "answerability, transparency and liability of the authorities to the people".

A statement circulated today at the news conference notes that the current constitution cannot be the main law "of a law-governed state because it does not in practice ensure the supremacy of the law nor provide for any specific mechanisms of public control over the authorities".

The document says that the constitution "contains a lot of clauses that do not ensure or guarantee the observance of human rights and people's freedoms in full".

In the view of the statement's authors, the constitution proclaims many rights and freedoms, but no mechanisms for holding the state responsible for their violation have been envisaged in the law.

What is more, members of the pressure group consider, the 1995 constitution "concentrated enormous power in the hands of the head of state, which runs counter to universally accepted democratic principles".

The members of the pressure group consider that it is a shortcoming of the constitution that parliament's authority is restricted, "since it has been deprived of controlling functions and of any real levers to influence the policy of the executive".

Members of the pressure group said that they intended through public meetings "to make the issue of constitutional reform topical and lobby for reform with the representative bodies of power".

The pressure group intends to attract experienced constitutional lawyers, academic institutions and local and foreign experts to improve the constitution, and also to draw on the experience of democratic countries and involve the public in the discussion.

One of the initiators of constitutional reform, the director of the Kazakh International Bureau on Human Rights and Observance of Legality, Yevgeniy Zhovtis, told the news conference that the pressure group had not yet decided what the reforming mechanism would be - whether the current constitution should be radically altered or a new constitution should be drawn up.

The pressure group also comprises the president of the Kazakh association of political sciences, Nurbulat Masanov; public figures who represent various public and political organizations and associations, Gulzhan Yergaliyeva, Galymzhan Zhakiyanov, Amirzhan Kosanov, Petr Svoik and Baltash Tursumbayev; and journalists, such as Sergey Duvanov and Yermurat Bapi.

Many of the initiators of constitutional reform, Zhakiyanov, Tursumbayev, Svoik, Zhovtis, Masanov and others, are also members of the pressure group that insists that a nationwide referendum should be held on the proposition that governors at all levels should be elected.

BBC Monitoring, March 18, 2002