CONSTITUTIONALISM IN TAJIKISTAN: TOWARD DEMOCRACY OR GREATER AUTHORITARIANISM?
Abstract
This article examines how constitutionalism is taking shape in present-day Tajikistan and analyzes its main development stages in 1994 (the drawing up and adoption of the first RT Constitution), 1999 (the constitutional reform), and 2003 (the introduction of amendments and additions to the current RT Constitution). The study defines the general features of constitutionalism during the transition period, which include the following:
1. The broad reception of foreign law, along with the implementation of international legal provisions regarding human rights, the democratic foundations of statehood, the separation of powers, and the rule of law, while retaining regulations inherited from Soviet times.
2. The general contradictoriness and inconsistency of constitutional rulemaking.
3. The transformation of certain provisions of the Constitution into declarations of intent, which do not correspond to the real political and socioeconomic situation in the country.
The article reveals the disconnect between the Constitution's content and the old legislation largely inherited from the Soviet past and presents the content of the constitutional reform carried out in 1999 as part of executing “The General Agreement on Establishing Peace and National Consent in Tajikistan.” The author analyzes the amendments and additions to the Constitution, which were brought up at the 1999 referendum, and provides an appraisal of the constitutional reform of 2003, examining the problems associated with its implementation that created favorable conditions for the emergence of authoritarianism in the country. It also notes that Tajikistan’s sociopolitical reality creates prerequisites for differences between the de jure and de facto constitution, often leading to a shift from democracy to authoritarian methods of exercising state power in practice.
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See: Kh. Khamidov, “Nekotorye voprosy gosudarstvenno-pravovogo razvitiia Respubliki Tadzhikistan,” Vestnik mezhparlamentskoi assamblei (St. Petersburg), No. 1, 1993, pp. 55-56.
See: RT Constitution, Dushanbe, 2003, 86 pp. (in Tajik, Russian, and English).
See: G. Shershenevich, Obshchaia teoriia prava, Issue 4, Moscow, 1912, p. 726.
See: Sh. Gaiurov, “Novaia Konstitutsiia Respubliki Tadzhikistan i nekotorye voprosy sobstvennosti,” in: Konstitutsiia Respubliki Tadzhikistan i puti ee realizatsii, Dushanbe, 1995, pp. 48-49.
See: General Agreement on Establishing Peace and National Consent in Tajikistan. What Is It? Prepared by the U.N. observer Mission in Tajikistan, Dushanbe, 1997.
See: Sadoi Mardum, 2 July, 1999.
See: Akhbori Majlisi Oli Respubliki Tadzhikistan, No. 6, 1999, Art 168.
Ibid., Art 169.
See: Draft of Amendments and Additions to the RT Constitution, Sharki Ozod, Dushanbe, 1999, 29 pp. (in Tajik and Russian).
For more on this, see: I. Starostina, “Referendum v sisteme konstitutsionno-pravovoi otvetstvennosti,” in: Konstitutsionno-pravovaia otvetstvennost: problemy Rossii, opyt zarubezhnykh stran, ed. by Prof. S. Avakian, MGU Publishers, Moscow, 2001, pp. 461-469; Kh. Khamdov, “The Role and Place of Referendum in the Modern Constitution,” Gosudarstvo i pravo (Dushanbe), No. 2, 2001, pp. 1-10 (in Tajik); B. Gadoev, Problemnye voprosy instituta referenduma, Pravovye problemy instituta referenduma v Respublike Tadzhikistan, ed. by Associate Professor A. Imomov, Dushanbe, 2003, pp. 7-76.
See: Akhbori Majlisi Oli Respubliki Tadzhikistan, No. 3, 2003, Art 95.
See: “Report of Chairman of the Coordinating Commission A. Dostiev, ‘On Introducing Amendments and Additions to the RT Constitution,’” Sadoi Mardum, 20 March, 2003 (in Tajik).
See: Akhbori Majlisi Oli Respubliki Tadzhikistan, No. 3, 2003, Art 97.
See: Ibid., Art 98.
For more details on this, see: M. Fedotova, “Institut vsenarodnogo obsuzhdeniia i rol sredstv massovoi informatsii v ego realizatsii,” in: Osnovnye napravleniia razvitiia gosudarstvenno-pravovykh institutov na sovremennom etape, Moscow, 1986, pp. 201-204; I. Churina, “Dalneishee sovershenstvovanie protsedury provedeniia vsenarodnykh obsuzhdenii,” Vestnik MGU, Series 11, Pravo, No. 5, 1988, pp. 75-80; M. Pisotkin, “Politicheskie igry vokrug referenduma,” Narodny deputat (Moscow), No. 7, 1993, pp. 49-54; V. Kapitsyn, Iu. Roldugin, “Obshchechelovecheskaia demokratiia (sotsiologichesky aspekt),” Vestnik MGU, Series 12, Sotsialno-politicheskie issledovaniia (Moscow), No. 72, 1992, pp. 39-45.
See: Draft of Amendments and Additions to the RT Constitution, TASFETO, Dushanbe, 2003, 30 pp. (in Tajik and Russian).
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