Jury Trials Prove Effective
Jury Trials Prove Effective
Kazakstan’s first trials by jury have so far been successful in shedding light on the judicial system’s failings, and NBCentralAsia observers say the system should now be used more widely.
On April 20, the first trial by jury to be held in the South Kazakstan region opened with a young man accused of murder pleading not guilty.
Jury trials were introduced in Kazakstan on January 1 this year and the country’s first case was heard in Petropavlovsk in early February.
Ninel Fokina, head of the Almaty Helsinki Committee and a member of the president’s human rights commission, notes that less than one per cent of all verdicts in non-jury trials are not-guilty and there are even fewer cases where the case is thrown out.
She believes jury trials make the legal system more open and says the first hearings “have immediately revealed deficiencies in the law itself and legislation as a whole”.
However, only people accused of crimes that carry the death penalty are currently being tried by jury. Fokina suggests the system should be used for a wider range of criminal cases, given that the country is moving towards abolishing capital punishment.
Well-known journalist Sergei Duvanov says that because jury trials are necessarily a long drawn-out procedure, they should be reserved for high-profile cases where preventing a miscarriage of justice is especially important.
"Such trials might include those with a political context, involving major fraud, embezzlement and murder," he said.
(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)
On April 20, the first trial by jury to be held in the South Kazakstan region opened with a young man accused of murder pleading not guilty.
Jury trials were introduced in Kazakstan on January 1 this year and the country’s first case was heard in Petropavlovsk in early February.
Ninel Fokina, head of the Almaty Helsinki Committee and a member of the president’s human rights commission, notes that less than one per cent of all verdicts in non-jury trials are not-guilty and there are even fewer cases where the case is thrown out.
She believes jury trials make the legal system more open and says the first hearings “have immediately revealed deficiencies in the law itself and legislation as a whole”.
However, only people accused of crimes that carry the death penalty are currently being tried by jury. Fokina suggests the system should be used for a wider range of criminal cases, given that the country is moving towards abolishing capital punishment.
Well-known journalist Sergei Duvanov says that because jury trials are necessarily a long drawn-out procedure, they should be reserved for high-profile cases where preventing a miscarriage of justice is especially important.
"Such trials might include those with a political context, involving major fraud, embezzlement and murder," he said.
(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)
