TURKMENISTAN: SOME TRANSPARENCY IN DRAFTING A NEW

C O N F I D E N T I A L ASHGABAT 001108 SIPDIS STATE FOR SCA/CEN, INL, DOJ FOR OPDAT/ALEXANDRE, NEWCOMBE, LEHMAN E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/01/2019 TAGS: KJUS PREL PGOV KCRM TX SUBJECT: TURKMENISTAN: SOME TRANSPARENCY IN DRAFTING A NEW CRIMINAL CODE REF: A. ASHGABAT 1080 ¶B. ASHGABAT 1083 ¶C. ASHGABAT 1078 Classified By: DCM Sylvia Reed Curran, Reasons 1.4 (B) and (D). ¶1. (SBU) The Government of Turkmenistan has been working with the British Embassy and the German development agency Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) for the last year and a half to rewrite Turkmenistan's Criminal Code. This effort is part of a range of legal reforms that the Turkmen are implementing, aimed at bringing their laws in line with the 2008 Constitution and international standards. (Refs A, B, C). Although the goal of the program was to have a draft criminal law completed by the end of August, GTZ is still hopeful that a draft will be ready to go to the Mejlis by the end of the year. ¶2. (SBU) As part of this project to draft a new Criminal Code, a working group consisting of international experts from Kazakhstan, Germany, and the UK, as well as Turkmen experts, met once a month. They looked at a model Code for CIS countries, the Codes of Kazakhstan and a few other CIS countries, and international standards on legal systems. When the draft is ready, the group plans to circulate it within the government to all ministries that have a stake, and also to publish a draft in the newspapers, in order to solicit comments and reactions. ¶3. (C) To bring the year-long project to a close, GTZ and the British Embassy, in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Turkmen National Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, organized a conference on August 18-19 on international standards in penitentiary systems. International experts from UNICEF, UNDP, and ICRC, as well as the director of the International Center for Prison Studies at King's College, London, spoke. GTZ noted that, unlike in the past, all of the Turkmen government invitees attended the conference and, moreover, asked serious questions. The officials least open to new ideas were those from the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) and the Procuracy, who, according to GTZ, were reluctant to shed any light on the prison system, which they see as their domain. ¶4. (C) COMMENT: As with a number of the draft laws currently being prepared, the Turkmen government appears to be taking a relatively inclusive approach to preparation of a new Criminal Code, involving foreign experts and circulating drafts for comment. The Mejlis (parliament) is also working on a draft of the Criminal Code and soliciting comments from legal experts (Ref A). Despite the apparent openness during the drafting process, the final version may or may not include provisions recommended by international experts, and will be subject to an internal review by stakeholders such as the MVD and the Procuracy to make sure their interests are taken into account. END COMMENT. MILES