Kazakhstan is considering U.S. practice on apprehension of suspected terrorists

Chairman of Kazakhstan's Constitutional Council Igor Rogov has consulted lawyers on the possibility of adopting the practice of the United States on apprehension of suspected terrorists for over 72 hours without court sanctions in Kazakhstan, Tengrinews.kz reports. "Is it possible in our conditions, provided that there is the people's will and that there is a threat of some grave crimes and terrorism in particular, to adopt such law without infringing upon our Constitution?" Rogov asked the dean of Kazakh Humanitarian Lq University Marat Kogamov, who studied counter-terrorist practices in the U.S.. Igor Rogov emphasized that the question is only rhetorical. "This question is not simple, but of course there are certain rules, there is a law on regulatory acts. There are many issues related to the acting Constitution that will probably need to be amended, but nevertheless... If we think about it, it is possible. I think that nothing is impossible, but thanks God we have no such situations like in the U.S. when there would have been a need to draw foreigners or Kazakhstan citizens somehow related to certain events into these procedures, but this will require certain amendments to our existing laws," Kogamov replied. Head of the Constitutional Council asked the same question to deputy General Prosecutor Iogan Merkel. "Suppose we have this situation: we need to adopt the law similar to the U.S. one and the draft is submitted to you to the General Prosecutor's office. Do you think it would be possible to adopt such a draft law?" Rogov said. "Under our Constitution that is currently in effect such draft law would be illegal, non-constitutional. We have clearly set regulations, we cannot go over them," Merkel said. The discussion was held at the meeting of the Constitutional Council.