New Delhi, Sep.17 (ANI): Almost two decades after acquiring independence with the break-up of the erstwhile Soviet Union, Kazakhstan appears keen to maximize the benefits from globalisation and to meet the emerging challenges of the 21st century.

In this regard, the Government of Kazakhstan has introduced and developed a legal system to sustain the country’s socio-economic advancement.

With President Nursultan Nazarbayev giving his approval to the legal policy framework for the period 2002 to 2010 in August this year, a number of steps have already been taken to qualitatively improve the process of legislation.

A significant improvement has been made in the main branches of national law (constitutional, administrative, civil, banking, taxation, financial, customs, environmental, criminal, criminal-procedural, and correctional (criminal-executive) laws).

Simultaneously, the Kazakh Government has adopted eight new landmark codes, each targeting focus areas. In 2003, the government introduced four codes – Forest Code, Land Code, Customs Code, and Water Code. The Labour Code and the Environment Code followed in 2007, while the Budget Code and Tax Code were introduced in the following year.uthorities in Kazakhstan, however, are not resting on their laurels or achievements, and do feel the necessity to improve the legislative and law-enforcement process further.

In the first decade of the 21st century, steps have been taken to modify and introduce amendments to the country’s Constitution. Constitutional reform is taking place with the objective of ushering all round development of institutions of civil society, harmonizing relations between the Government and society, removing constitutional restrictions to facilitate more active interaction at all levels. The system of local self-government has been modernized, and is now in total consonance with the country’s internal conditions and requirements.

The Government has also reformed the judicial-legal system with the aim of strengthening the independence of courts in pronouncing judgments.

The reforms have facilitated a near total abolishment of capital punishment in Kazakhstan, limiting its application exclusively to terrorist crimes involving the loss of human life, or wartime crimes.

A system of judicial custody has been introduced and the Constitution prohibits investigation by the Office of Public Prosecutor.

These reforms are directed towards further democratization of the institutions of the Government and society.n order to make the legislation activity more effective, the Kazakh Government is in the process of creating a system that would be modern in content and have regulations that vividly reflect all stages of legislation and law-enforcement activity.

Each Legal Act will and is being evaluated as per international standards to ensure that the interests of Kazakh citizens, society and the State are comprehensively and rationally taken into consideration.

Efforts are on to evolve a system of legal expertise in accordance with the development of Kazakh society and the Kazakh State.

Presently 17 branches of legislation have been identified which require legal codes for their regulation.

However, codification is not the only instrument for systematization of legislation. It is necessary to use other instruments like consolidation to regulate certain relations within one single Act.

In the Kazakh system, the adoption of any code has to be preceded by huge legislative and law-enforcement practices, thorough monitoring of such practices, their analysis and evaluation on a systemic basis.

It is also necessary to constantly improve and raise the level of the technical side of law because the quality of normative legal acts and on the whole the level of work culture while dealing with documents in the Government machinery is dependent upon this technical side.

Perfection of the mechanisms of legal regulation is, to a great extent, connected with wide use of information technology in the law making and law enforcement process.

The Government of Kazakhstan is also moving to create a Reference Bank of Standard Legal Acts in digital format.

Some more steps are also being thought of to improve and modernize the existing practice of legislation. They include the following:

1. The main directions of the evolution of national law

It is necessary to implement further the legal ideas and principles enshrined in the Constitution which should get reflected in the legislative, organizational and other types of measures being taken by the Government.

The Governmental and the social service institutions should concentrate their efforts on realizing the creative potential of the Fundamental Law of the country which exists in the Constitution throughout.

Improvement of legislation and law-enforcement activity has to necessarily follow the principle of supremacy of the Constitution, and the Acts of lower level ought to conform to the norms of the Acts of higher level.

There is a need of such systemic measures which would ensure rule of law in the country and stability of the legal system, as also gradual development of the national law as per the existing Constitution. A comprehensive approach to the legal policy will help in modernizing the entire legal base in the context of the overall strategy of development of the country, including the formation of a qualitatively new model of the governance based on the principles of performance, transparency and accountability, which will ensure protection of rights and freedom of citizens, interests of the society and the State.

2.1 The constitutional law is the foundation of the national legal system. Its gradual development is based on the principles and norms of the existing Constitution of Kazakhstan which was adopted as a result of the constitutional reform of the year 2007.

The ideas and principles as laid down in the Fundamental Law of the country, determine the basic directions and mechanisms of the development of national legal system, including the Constitutional law, in a long-term perspective. In other words, the most important task is to fully realize the principles and norms of the Constitution, and in the first place, in activities of the Government bodies and the functionaries of the Government, thus ensuring direct application of the Constitution, as also realization of its potential through the current legislation and enforcement of law.

Observance and realization of fundamental principles concerning the activities of the Republic, as laid down in our Constitution (these are: social harmony and political stability, economic development for the welfare of all the peoples, patriotism, and deciding the most important questions of the State life in a democratic manner), will ensure steady socio-economic and politico-legal growth of the country.

In order to further establish the rule of law in the country it is necessary, on the one hand, to achieve realization of the guarantee of Constitutional rights to the maximum possible extent, and, on the other hand, unconditional and full implementation of constitutional duties by all the Government bodies, by the officials, citizens and organizations.

For ensuring human rights and freedoms in accordance with our Constitution it is necessary to create such conditions that would guarantee equality of rights and freedoms irrespective of birth, social, official or property status, sex, race, nationality, language, religion, beliefs, place of residence or other any criteria.

In the given context the role of legal mechanisms in the preservation and strengthening of the inter-ethnic harmony, maintenance of unity of the multinational peoples of Kazakhstan is going to increase.

Kazakhstan is a secular state characterized by religious peace and harmony where the rights of believers and non-believers are equally respected and observed. The State does not interfere in religious activities, on the other hand, it has to interact with all the religions and faiths and has to protect the rights of citizens with regard to freedom of religion for which there should be an in-built effective state policy.

There is need of further perfection, observance and uniform application of the legislation on freedom of worship with regard to regulating the missionary activity, distribution of religious products, and registration of religious organizations.

One of the important tasks of national law is to ensure modernization of the system of financial control by the Government because such control is an efficacious instrument to manage assets of the Government. It is therefore, necessary to strengthen the legal and procedural aspects of Government departments functioning that are specifically concerned with financial control. (ANI)