Extract

I. Since the formation of sovereign Kazakhstan, the country’s political system has evolved in accordance with the conditions which the state found in the early days of independence, when the Constitution of the Kazakh SSR was still effective which was adopted at the extraordinary session of the Supreme Council VII of the Republic IX convocation on 20 April, 1978. It consisted of one preamble, 10 sections, 19 chapters and 173 articles. According to it, all the power belonged to the people which were divided by classes into workers, peasants and the working intelligentsia. Over the system of authorities and administration was placed the Communist Party of the Kazakh SSR (Art. 6). The state and cooperative kolkhoz property, as well as the property of trade unions and other public organizations were announced as the basic economic sys- tem of the republic. In the Constitution of 1978 the national-state and administrative-territorial structure of the republic, the competences of higher and local authorities and administration authorities (Art. 78-83, 97-139), the principles of the electoral system, the legal status of People‘s Deputies, the institutions of the state plan for economic and social development, the state budget, judicial power, arbitration, prosecutors supervision, etc. were defined. After the declaration of independence on 16 December, 1991, the Supreme Council of the Kazakh SSR was the supreme legislative body, elected still during Soviet rule. Then, in December 1993, the Supreme Council dissolved itself. The first parliamentary elections were held in 1994. Therefore, in the early 1990s, in...