Information regarding the regulatory resolution of the Constitutional Court
(№ 2 dated 10 January 2023)
The Constitutional Court has considered an appeal by members of Parliament for an official interpretation of paragraph 4 of Article 62 of the Constitution.
According to this Article, constitutional laws shall be adopted on matters provided for in the Constitution by a majority of at least two-thirds of the total number of deputies of each Chamber of Parliament.
The subject of the appeal requests answers to two questions:
The Constitutional Court considers that on 5 June 2022, the people of Kazakhstan as the only source of state power, exercising their power directly through a republican referendum, excluded from the Constitution the provisions defining: the status and powers of the First President of the Republic - Elbasy, the possibility of their regulation by constitutional law, lifetime membership in the Constitutional Council of the Republic of Kazakhstan, as well as his special privileges - immutability of status and non-proliferation of the restriction on being elected President more than twice in a row. In addition, the constitutional reform of 2022 changed the order of the law-making process and from 1 January 2023, constitutional laws are adopted by Parliament in a joint sitting of its Chambers with at least two readings. After the republican referendum of 5 June 2022, which excluded the constitutional and legal basis for the existence of the personified Constitutional Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan ‘On the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan - Elbasy’ and other references in the Constitution to the first President of the Republic, the retention of this Constitutional Law in the current legislation is not consistent with the updated version of the Constitution. Constitutional laws whose subject matter of regulation is excluded from the Constitution should be removed from such level of legislation.
The Constitutional Court recognised that at present there are no legal grounds for retaining the Constitutional Law ‘On the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan - Elbasy’ in the current law of the Republic of Kazakhstan, therefore it should be declared null and void.