Kazakhstan to revise wording on Russian language status in new constitution draft

Kazakhstan has changed the wording on the use of the Russian language in the draft of its new constitution, Deputy Chair of the Constitutional Court Bakhyt Nurmukhamedov said.

On January 31, the constitutional reform commission published the draft text of the new constitution. Article 9 originally stated that Russian would be used officially in state bodies and local self-government bodies “equally” with the Kazakh language. The word “equally” will now be replaced with the phrase “alongside.”

“In Article 9 of the new constitution, the word ‘tең’ (‘equal’) has been replaced with ‘qatar’ (‘alongside’),” Nurmukhamedov said at the commission’s 10th meeting.

He explained that specialists from the government, parliament and the presidential administration, as well as linguists and other experts, introduced editorial and stylistic changes to ensure a unified terminological and semantic approach in the draft.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed a decree on January 21 establishing the constitutional reform commission. The commission has been holding regular meetings to analyze proposals for parliamentary reform and to prepare constitutional amendments. During its work, members reviewed proposals affecting all sections of the constitution and 77 articles, accounting for 84% of the document’s text.

Kazakhstan has introduced a number of constitutional changes in recent decades. In 1998, the terms of the president and members of parliament were extended. In 2007, the country moved to a proportional electoral system and the First President was granted the right to be elected an unlimited number of times. In 2011, the procedure for holding early presidential elections was set. In 2017, certain presidential powers were transferred to parliament and the government. In 2019, an amendment was adopted in connection with the capital being renamed Nur-Sultan. In 2022, a nationwide referendum amended about one-third of the constitution, including setting the presidential term at seven years, limited to a single term.