The Higher Judicial Council has prepared a draft of corresponding amendments to several presidential decrees. The rationale behind the project states that this amendment is being made to fulfill the instructions of the President and Prime Minister of Kazakhstan to increase the staff of the Council's Apparatus and elevate the status of its leaders and employees.
Developers claim that the last increase in the staff of the Apparatus from 13 to 25 units was in 2019, following the transfer of functions from the Supreme Court to the Council. Since then, the Council has taken on a significant number of new functions, such as candidate training, judge qualification enhancement, and more.
Furthermore, a new mechanism will soon be implemented to review each annulled court decision by the Judicial Jury, where a gross violation of legality occurred, leading to an expected 400% increase in the workload of the Judicial Jury.
Additionally, the procedure for appointing the head of the Council's Apparatus and their deputy will change. The head must be a political official appointed by the President upon the recommendation of the Council's Chair, while the deputy must be an administrative state official of category "A" appointed by the Chair based on the recommendation of the Apparatus head.
If accepted, these amendments will come into effect on July 1, 2024. The draft is open for public discussion on the "Open Regulatory Legal Acts" portal until April 23, 2024. The proposed changes will also be made to the Register of positions of political and administrative state officials.
Moreover, new positions will be added to category "B" of administrative state positions, including an assistant and sector head of the Council's Apparatus. The Secretary of the Higher Judicial Council will also be included in the list of authorized persons evaluating the performance of political state officials.
