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| Democratic Party of Kazakhstan «AZAT» / Activity / Statements / 24.06.2008 - Joint Initiative of the Democratic Party “AZAT” and the All-National Social-Democratic Party |
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| 24.06.2008 - Joint Initiative of the Democratic Party “AZAT” and the All-National Social-Democratic Party |
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Re: Putting Forward Highly Important Draft Laws
On the threshold of Kazakhstan’s chairmanship in the OSCE a key question comes high on the agenda: will the authorities bring themselves to real democratic reforms, or they will once again just try to imitate their presence. In this regard, the All-National Social-Democratic Party and Democratic Party of Kazakhstan “AZAT” take the initiative to offer 4 most important and indicative draft laws:
1. “On amendments and addenda to the Constitutional Law on Elections in the Republic of Kazakhstan”;
2. “On mass media”;
3. “On political parties”;
4. “On the order of organization and conducting of peaceful rallies, demonstrations, marches and pickets”.
The main fundamentals of our draft laws are below:
1. Lack of protection of the rights of voters, absence of guarantees for realization of the vote has become the reason of mass falsifications during the elections in 2004, 2005 and 2007. It has also led to serious aggravation of the political situation in the country and decrease of trust of the public and the international community to the Kazakhstani authorities. Only creation of effective mechanism of legal regulation of the electoral process that could ensure its political impartiality would serve as the way out of this situation. In this regard, we suggest to legislatively secure independence of politically balanced and genuinely pluralist election commissions.
We believe that the law has to stipulate the demand of minimal membership in the commission – 7 persons – and forming of the commissions by representatives of all political parties and candidates that are taking part in the electoral process. In order to prevent the facts of ballot-box stuffing, use of “carousel-type” multiple voting, we suggest introduction of the legislative requirement of production of the ballots with a detachable control coupon.
The draft law guarantees equal conditions for holding of any campaign events, and compulsory allocation of space for agitation materials. Besides, the accessibility and transparency of information on the voter lists is ensured, and the rights of authorized representatives and observers are expanded. It is suggested to restore the right of political parties to create pre-election blocs, lower the margin from 7 to 5 per cent for the parliamentary elections. The legislative mechanisms to prevent creation of the one-party parliament are introduced. We demand cancellation of the e-voting system, which has repeatedly discredited itself and fails to ensure transparency of the vote counting process.
2. Mass media must serve the democratic, law-based and social state, which the Republic of Kazakhstan claims to be. DPK “AZAT” and ANSDP suggest the draft law on mass media that is developed on the basis of the draft by the Kazakhstani Congress of Journalists. We have made a number of additions and alterations in it. We propose to:
1) establish – as one of the major principles of activity of the mass media – “acknowledgement of ideological and political diversity in the country”;
2) introduce legislative barriers for monopolization of the media;
3) create an independent standing organ – the National council for mass media issues. It is to be formed by three representatives from each association of the journalists, broadcasters, state executive bodies and by one representative from each political party. The National council cannot include any heads of the state bodies, members of the parliament, owners/founders of the media outlets or leaders of the political parties.
The main tasks of the National council are elaboration of the suggestions on improvement of the legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the sphere of distribution and use of the radio-frequency spectrum and on allocation of the state direct support to the media outlets.
3. We are convinced that in order to form a sustainable party system it is vital to create proper conditions for civilized political competition and multi-party environment, which are to provide for continuity of state governance. It is impossible to solve this issue without introduction of serious changes in the legislation.
Toward this end, ANSDP and DPK “AZAT” suggest introduction of the following legislative requirements to the creation and registration of a political party:
1) the initiative for creation of a party shall belong to a group of Kazakhstan citizens consisting of not less than 10 individuals, who form the organizing committee and call a constituent conference of a political party;
2) the organization committee shall send the notification on the intention to create a political party to the authorized state body and to outline its proposed name;
3) the constituent conference of a political party shall be deemed legitimate if it was attended by the delegates, representing more than half of regions (oblasts), city of republican status (Almaty) and the capital of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The norm of delegates’ representation is established by the organizing committee, based on the assumption that each oblast, the city of republican status and the capital of the Republic of Kazakhstan should be represented by not less than three delegates;
4) the state registration of a party requires that it should have not less than 5 thousand members, representing structural sub-units (branches and representative offices) in more than a half of oblasts, the city of republican status and the capital of the Republic of Kazakhstan, each having not less than 10 members in its ranks.
Besides, the draft law proposes unified conditions of state support to the political parties, as well as the rules of state funding for the political parties.
4. The right of the citizens to peaceful rallies, assemblies, pickets and other public gatherings is one of the fundamental guarantees of the freedom of thought and speech, expression of the opinions and convictions, one of the most important forms of social and political activity of the population.
However, the current law “On the order of organization and conducting of the peaceful rallies, marches, pickets and demonstrations in the Republic of Kazakhstan” imposes serious limitations on the civil rights, effectively abolishing their real content.
The distinctive feature of our draft law is that it stipulates clear definitions for the notions of public event, rally, march, demonstration, picket etc., states the principles of their conducting.
Comparing to the current legislation, the draft law does not include norms that local representative bodies can additionally regulate the procedure of conducting of the public gatherings under the pretext of local conditions. We have repeatedly witnessed that the local administrations are actively using this provision to limit and violate the citizens’ rights. In contrast to the currently acting permissive order of conducting of public assemblies, the notification mechanism is introduced.
A public gathering can be held in any suitable open public places, with the exception of small number of places, use of which is prohibited or limited by the law.
The proposed deadline for submission of notification is to be established not earlier than ten days and not later than five days prior to the event. However, a picket, supposed to be held by the group of citizens, can be forestalled by the appropriate notification three days prior to the gathering. If a picket is to be held by three or less participants, the preliminary notification is not necessary.
The ability or inability of the one-party parliament and government to accept our suggestions will serve as an objective indicator of the true intentions of the authorities.
Azat party, ANSDP
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