Kyrgyzstan's Unsatisfactory Constitution

The latest version of the Kyrgyz constitution is a source of controversy, even if it contains some improvements in the area of human rights. Constitutional revisions passed at the end of last year restored many of the powers that the constitution passed in November took away from the Kyrgyz president.



The December 30 amendments to the constitution were a way out of an impasse created by the government’s resignation earlier that month.



The constitution that was adopted on November 8 under pressure from the opposition stated that governments are to be chosen by the political party that holds most seats in parliament following an election based on proportional representation. There is no such dominant party in the sitting parliament, which was elected before the changes.



The December amendments may have been designed to avert a constitutional crisis, but they also strengthened President Kurmanbek Bakiev’s powers vis-à-vis parliament. He is now invested with a lot of authority and can exert influence on all branches of power, according to Zainidin Kurmanov, a leading member of the Moya Strana party.



Gulnara Iskakova, an expert on constitutional law, explained that Bakiev gains more power over the judiciary, including the right to choose judges for the Supreme Court and Constitutional Court and propose their names to parliament. He also gets to shape the cabinet and the defence and security agencies, and to appoint the heads of two important bodies, the Central Electoral Committee and the Accounts Chamber, plus half their members.



The consensus among experts polled by NBCentralAsia is that the document remains flawed. As Iskakova pointed out, supposing a political party wins the election but is unable to form a government. Then the president can nominate another party to choose a cabinet – but if that fails as well, parliament will be dissolved.



“Why the whole of parliament?” she asked. “It’s illogical, since it is not the whole of parliament that gets to nominate a prime minister, only those [50 per cent quota] elected via proportional representation.”



Kurmanov noted that the latest version of the constitution contained some positive changes, too: for example long-awaited human rights and freedoms including the right to hold dual citizenship, transferring the authority to issue arrest warrants from the prosecutor’s office to the courts, plus trial by jury.



Iskakova said that from a technical legal point of view, both the November and December versions of the constitution are poorly drafted and full of holes.



Valentin Bogatyrev, vice-president of the Vostok think-tank, shared this view, saying that in both documents, “the powers exercised by different authorities are not in balance, and the mechanisms by which they are supposed to interact are not set out”.



Bogatyrev recommends drafting yet another version of the constitution, this time using professional lawyers, and ensuring that unlike its predecessors, it is passed according to the proper procedures and approved by the Constitutional Court.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)