Kyrgyzstan Scoffs At Checks And Balances With Dodgy Law On High Court Decisions

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Analysts chronicling the rapid disappearance of what remains of democracy in Kyrgyzstan have been very busy of late.

But when a country once known as an outlier in an authoritarian region abandons even the pretense of judicial independence, it is probably worth flagging.

Such are the implications of the legislation currently awaiting President Sadyr Japarov's signature, which will give the head of state the power to reverse rulings of the Constitutional Court in instances when national morals are deemed offended.

Constitutional courts exist in dozens of countries as the final authority on important issues, including those affecting the fundamental rights of citizens. That doesn't mean there are no precedents for reversing their rulings -- or that all of the governments of the countries where they operate respect the idea of an independent judiciary.

But even the more authoritarian countries don't tend to say the quiet part out loud. Japarov's Kyrgyzstan does.

Lawmakers on September 28 quickly passed second and third readings of the bill that will allow Japarov to overturn any rulings conflicting with the moral values of the people. Only five lawmakers voted against.

One institution that looks doomed to fall in line with Bishkek's more authoritarian neighbors is the Jogorku Kenesh, Kyrgyzstan's unicameral legislature.

But how exactly does it define those moral laws?

Unsurprisingly, the law is not particularly specific about this. And that is a problem, according to Nurbek Sydykov, a lawyer for the nonprofit Institute of Media Policy, which reviewed the legislation.

"This concept of morality is not a stable one. It is something that changes. I believe that it is wrong to tie the law to this concept," the lawyer wrote in a commentary. "The state must maintain balance. If the balance is upset, then with more interference wrong decisions can be made."

The Patronym Strikes Back

Views like this didn't carry much weight where it mattered. While promoting the law in parliament, Deputy Justice Minister Orozbek Sydykov invoked "the traditions of the Kyrgyz people, which do not limit or insult human rights and freedoms [and] are protected by law."

The need for the legislation had been spotlighted, Sydykov argued, by an unusual ruling handed down by the nine-judge Constitutional Court on June 30. The court deemed that citizens 16 or older should have the choice of using a mother's name as a "matronymic" in place of the Russian-style "patronymic" if they so wished, with the patronymic remaining as the default for younger children.

The deputy minister maintained that the decision went against Kyrgyz tradition, which stipulated that everyone should know the names of their last seven male ancestors so as to avoid the trap of accidentally marrying off a daughter to a blood relative.

The court ruling followed a long campaign led by feminist activist Altyn Kapalova that began with her attempt to change her children's birth certificates to rid them of her former spouse's name.

But it immediately proved unpopular among the establishment, with powerful national security chief Kamchibek Tashiev and Mufti Zamir Rakiev among the naysayers. And after Japarov joined them in their objections it became a useful pretext to limit the court's writ -- and expand the president's.

Catching Up With The Neighbors

Japarov was a member of the authoritarian Bakiev government overthrown in the bloodiest of Kyrgyzstan's many political crises, in 2010. The next decade for him was defined by a mixture of opposition, exile, and jail.

In some ways the constitutional changes he championed after being freed from prison and brought to power amid another wave of unrest in 2020 are turning the clock back to those times. The powers that parliament had acquired from the executive in the 2010 constitution were handed back. A prohibition on presidents serving multiple terms was scrapped.

But the 2010 revolution changed political discourse, ushering in fierce confrontations over social mores and national values. Populist Japarov and his supporters in the parliament have not missed this trick, typically invoking loose arguments around tradition to promote laws that appear to discriminate against civic groups or to justify blocks on the media.

During the rollout of the law on the Constitutional Court, the government's representative to the court, Almazbek Moldobaev, cited practice from Latvia and Kyrgyzstan's authoritarian neighbors Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan as justification.

But Sydykov of the Institute of Media Policy suggests that this is at minimum a manipulation, noting that none of the laws governing the equivalent courts in these countries had norms of the type drafted by Japarov's team.

To be sure, the website of Uzbekistan's Constitutional Court calls the court's decisions "final and not subject to appeal."

One institution that looks doomed to fall in line with Bishkek's more authoritarian neighbors is the Jogorku Kenesh, Kyrgyzstan's unicameral legislature. The decline of parliament began several years before Japarov's arrival to power, as predecessors Sooronbai Jeenbekov and Almazbek Atambaev exerted whatever pressure they could to bring lawmakers back into the orbit of the presidency.

But if the new man's almost three-year-reign has shown anything, it is his penchant for finishing off a job. The September 28 vote on the court was rushed through without debate after the law passed a first reading on September 6. Several amendments suggested by parliamentarians were ignored by the relevant committee.

And appetite for resistance in the Jogorku Kenesh is unlikely to grow in the near future, after one of the president's more notable opponents was arrested at the beginning of last month on what many say are trumped-up charges.

Adakhan Madumarov, leader of the six-member Butun Kyrgyzstan faction in parliament, is facing charges of treason over a land deal signed in 2009 with rival neighbor Tajikistan.

Written by Chris Rickleton with additional reporting by RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service