Kyrgyzstan – Constitutional situation

Following the opposition takeover in Kyrgyzstan, I wondered about the constitutional status of the country. Given there was a self-declared interim government, that the president had not resigned, that parliament had been dissolved (and now the Constitutional Court has been dissolved too), I wondered whether Kyrgyzstan could still be considered semi-presidential or had the constitution been suspended?

There is a post at the usually reliable 24.kg blog that should clarify the position. I will quote it in full and you can decide whether or not it does. They provide an English (of sorts) version of the text of the decree signed by the head of the interim government, Roza Otunbaeva. This is the text of Decree no. 1, 7 April 2010:

““In purposes of creation of effective system of the government  ruling on behalf of Kyrgyz people the interim government passes the present decree: the power is passed to the interim government until adoption of the new edition of Constitution; Constitution adopted by referendum of October 21, 2010 is legally valid; Zhogorku Kenesh is dissolved by the present decree; the activity of Central Election Committee is stopped until adoption of the new Election Code; the structure of the government adopted by the Law KR “Adoption of the government structure” of October, 2009 is temporary kept; credentials and functions of the machinery of state and ZhK KR are passed to the interim government apparatus; employees of these machineries not involved in the work of the interim government will have holidays with further leaving without pay in accordance with the labour legislation of KR; state bodies with exception of president apparatus, president’s secretariat, CADII, service of the state councilor for defense, security and order, president’s council, development council, and state minister of foreign affairs, are passed to the competence of the interim government; heads of local administrations and local governing, heads of diplomatic missions in foreign countries, state organizations and enterprises continue to fulfill their duties until appropriate decision of the interim government; the head of  interim government machinery has to organize liquidation committee for accepting and passing documentation and material sources of liquidating structures in the competence of the interim government in the accordance with the prescribed order; appointments and dismisses envisaged by Constitution are conducted by decrees of the interim government; conducting elections in Zhogorku Kenesh is appointed by decree of the interim government; judges of all courts of KR [Kyrgyz Republic ed.] with unfair behavior and criminal liable can be dismissed by decree. The present decree become valid after signing and acts within transition period until accepting a proper decision of the interim government. The head of the interim government KR Roza Otunbaeva”.

Basically, as far as I can tell, the interim government is claiming that the Constitution is still in operation, though I assume it means the Constitution adopted by the referendum of 21 October 2007. Having said that, it is unclear to me that the Constitution allows an interim government to decide everything by decree. Anyway, for the time being I am working on the assumption that legally Kyrgyzstan is still semi-presidential.

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