The new draft law of the Kyrgyz Republic "On State-Guaranteed Legal Aid" (SGLA) will ensure citizens’ access to legal aid at the district level. What other innovations will be introduced and change the work of the SGLA system was discussed at the round table on the draft law "On state-guaranteed legal aid" with the participation of representatives of civil society, Committee on Constitutional Legislation, State System, Judicial and Legal Issues and Regulations of the Jogorku Kenesh of the KR, Centre for coordination of SGLA under the Ministry of Justice, Bar of the KR and UNDP.

Beishembek kyzy Kamila, a member of the working group and an employee of the department of the Committee on Constitutional Legislation, State System and Rules of Jogorku Kenesh stated: "As of today, the law on SGLA has been initiated and is being prepared for the first reading in the committee. The law itself has worked for a long time, but only in the sphere of criminal proceedings. The new bill identifies new categories of the most vulnerable people as "victim of domestic violence" or "victims of human trafficking." Categories of people with disabilities, pensioners, minors were there before, but only in criminal cases. We were very clear about the categories, because we need to be guided by the capabilities of the state. The bill was initiated a week ago and now the committee is preparing for the first reading."

The SGLA law was adopted in 2016 as part of judicial and legal reform. In 2017, a center for coordination of SGLA under the Ministry of Justice of the Kyrgyz Republic was created. Ryskulova Jyldyz, Deputy Director of the Center for coordination of SGLA under the Ministry of Justice of the Kyrgyz Republic noted: "The current law provides legal aid of two types: primary assistance in the form of legal advice, and secondary in the form of qualified assistance from lawyers to represent and protect the rights and interests of citizens in all stages of legal proceedings. The state financing is provided only for the second kind of legal assistance. According to the new law, the amount of payment for lawyers will be increased.”

At the round table it was noted that the practice revealed some gaps in the norms of legislation, which hinder effective implementation of the law. These are questions concerning the mechanism of execution, the boundary of individuals who receive assistance, as well as the interaction of subjects of the system of SGLA, in particular in criminal cases with law enforcement and judicial authorities.

"There is a separate question about the mechanism of providing legal aid in civil and administrative cases, as the main emphasis was put on criminal cases. Based on the analysis of this practice, we first made a proposal to amend the law. Since these changes exceeded more than 50% of the articles and norms of this law, according to the law on normative legal acts, a new version of the law is developed. Therefore, the working group decided not to make amendments but instead develop a new draft, with emphasis on the regulation of assistance in civil and administrative cases." said the director of the SGLA Akzhol Kalbekov.

It is expected that the new law will improve the effectiveness of state-guaranteed legal assistance. Aizana Niyazalieva, member of the Bar Council of the Kyrgyz Republi and Chair of the Bar of Chui Oblast, noted that every citizen who does not have money to pay for a lawyer (monthly income less than 8.75 million soms) is entitled to such assistance. "Advocacy as an institution of civil society primarily represents the interests of citizens. In addition, according to the Constitution, everyone has the right to receive qualified legal assistance and this is implemented by lawyers in the framework of the Law on State Legal Aid.” she noted.

A working group for the development of the draft law of the Kyrgyz Republic "Amendments to the Law of the Kyrgyz Republic on State-Guaranteed Legal Aid (SGLA) was established on May 14, 2019 by the decision of the Committee on Constitutional Legislation, State Structure, Judicial and Legal Issues and Regulations of the Jogorku Kenesh. UNDP is supporting this initiative in the framework of the UNDP and the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs project "Towards Sustainable Access to Justice for Legal Empowerment in the Kyrgyz Republic.”

Link to the photo album from the event: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmVVBWjz 

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Media contacts: Nurzhan Alymkanova, Communications Officer.

nurzhan.alymkanova@undp.org