Majority of Kazakhstan citizens agree with court decisions

Kazakhstan citizens do not appeal or challenge 91 percent of court decisions on civil cases and 65 percent on criminal cases, Tengrinews.kz reports citing chairman of Kazakhstan Supreme Court Bektas Beknazarov. “Only 9 percent of court decisions on civil cases are appealed and challenged. 35 percent of decisions on criminal cases go to higher authority, i.s. are appealed. In the remaining 65% of criminal litigations citizens agree with the courts’ decisions,” head judge said at the meeting with the students of Al-Farabi Kazakh State University on February 14. He added that Kazakhstan courts review around 1 million cases a year. Beknazarov noted that the majority of Kazakhstan people trust the courts. “We have made a servey that showed that the majority trusts our court. We gave the questionnaires to lawyers, witnesses, defendants and complainants,” he said. In summer 2011 six judges of Kazakhstan Supreme Court were fired in suspicion of corruption. However, criminal cases were not initiated against 4 of them and they could go back to their jobs. Criminal cases of two judges were transferred to court.