A three-day conference on constitutional justice in a comparative perspective was organised …
… for the judges by the Max Planck Foundation. Research fellows of the foundation, international experts and Kyrgyz judges participated in this event and discussed crucial issues related to the functions and competences of the Constitutional Chamber.
Kyrgyz judges also visited the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) in Karlsruhe and met with a German judge and staff members of the Court. After the conference in Heidelberg, visiting the Austrian Constitutional Court (Verfassungsgerichtshof) was part of the agenda in order to learn more about the practice and institutional aspects of the Austrian constitutional justice system.
The Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of the Kyrgyz Republic (Конституционная палата Верховного суда Кыргызской Республики) started working in Kyrgyzstan in 2013. To this end, the selection of judges had begun in 2011. The Chamber consists of eleven judges; however, only nine judges had been selected until the conference. The Constitutional Chamber is a successor to the Constitutional Court of the Kyrgyz Republic that existed until 2010. After the events in 2010, it has yet to regain its authority within the domestic legal system of Kyrgyzstan. The judges selected to the Chamber need to share their experiences with their colleagues from the well-developed constitutional justice systems.
UNDP Kyrgyzstan, which implements a project aimed at supporting the Constitutional Chamber with funding provided by the European Union, asked the Max Planck Foundation to organise a study tour for the members of the Constitutional Chamber to Germany and Austria.