Kazakhstan: lawyers demand resignation of Minister of Justice

Legal consultants, lawyers, notaries and private bailiffs of Kazakhstan announced the collection of signatures under the petition addressed to the President of the country demanding to relieve the Minister of Justice Marat Beketaev of his position and to appoint a more adequate person to this post.

As ACCA has already reported, the confrontation between private lawyers and the specialized department has been going on for more than one month. Trying to express their opinion regarding Beketaev, the lawyers even intended to go to the rally, but the authorities forbade them to do it under the pretext of a worsening epidemiological situation.

“On March 13, 2021, for the first time in the history of the country and for the first time on the territory of the post-Soviet states, having received the appropriate consent, lawyers, legal consultants, notaries, private bailiffs, legal scientists gathered to hold a rally for their professional rights and against illegal actions encroaching on their independence. But the next day, after the rally was agreed with the mayor’s office of Almaty, by the order of the chief sanitary doctor, mass events were prohibited due to the deterioration of the epidemiological situation associated with the coronavirus,” lawyers wrote in their petition to the President.

They also explained that the ban on the rally was the reason for their appeal to a higher authority.

“This fact leaves us no choice other than to apply to you with the petition to cease carrying out the duties of the Minister of Justice M. Beketaev, who is responsible for the legal support of the state’s activities, but who allowed the creation of such a situation and didn’t take measures to prevent social tension in professional legal environment. He doesn’t interfere with lobbying the interests of a small group of persons pursuing opportunistic interests to the detriment of the rights of citizens of our country. And, as many lawyers believe, he is unable to solve problems in notaries and enforcement proceedings,” the document emphasizes.

The authors of the petition also ask the head of state to appoint a more adequate person to the post of Minister of Justice.

“We ask you to appoint one of the candidates presented by the professional community, who has experience in legal practice, but is not burdened with the mentality of an official and connections of the civil service, to the indicated executive position. The proposal is dictated by multiple facts of ridiculous decisions previously made by officials who have a superficial understanding of the work of practicing lawyers. We are confident that with your support of our initiative, the planned reforms in the judicial and law enforcement systems will be carried out as quickly as possible and with the assistance of the professional community. This is the voice of the bar associations and chambers of legal consultants throughout the country,” the appeal says.

Meanwhile, as the director of one of the law firms Yevgeny Seipulnik explained on social networks, it was originally planned to collect signatures online by posting an appeal on a special website, but then they had to give up this idea.

“Dear colleagues, we have received a refusal from the moderator of otinish.kz to post the petition to the head of state for online voting. The site, referring to the rules, refused to post the petition. However, the physical collection of signatures was not forbidden,” Seipulnik said.

Thus, it was decided to organize the collection of “real” signatures throughout the country. The chairpersons of the chambers in cities and regions were appointed responsible for collecting signatures.

“Each of the Ministers of Justice of Kazakhstan showed himself (or didn’t show), was remembered (or not remembered) in his own way. But none of them tried to infringe on the independence of the legal profession and bring it under complete control as the current minister, who is already in fact a “long-liver” in comparison with his predecessors. Hence the current petition, which was joined by other representatives of the country’s legal community, who are not officials or civil servants. I personally had some kind of ambivalent attitude towards the demand (request) to the President… Well, the head of state will dismiss Minister Beketaev. And then what or who? Are there now among the practicing lawyers, on whose behalf and about whose “troubles” we are talking about, a worthy candidate for the suddenly vacated post of Minister of Justice? Indeed, over the decades, there is a stable tradition of the appointment of Minister exclusively from the bureaucratic environment. And it’s a very durable custom,” Vitaly Voronov, one of the country’s most famous lawyers, commented on this.