The Max Planck Foundation in collaboration with UNDP organised a three-day workshop and a study visit to Germany and Austria for the Constitutional Chamber of Kyrgyzstan in a EU funded capacity development project
MPFPR in close cooperation with UNDP, which implements a EU-funded capacity development project in Kyrgyzstan, organised a three-day workshop on constitutional justice for the Constitutional Chamber of Kyrgyzstan. The workshop took place at the Foundation from 2–4 December.
The Constitutional Chamber is the highest body of constitutional review in Kyrgyzstan. Recently appointed members of the Chamber are keen to enhance their international contacts and to analyse their own constitutional challenges in a comparative perspective.
On the first day of the workshop, the MPFPR fellows and an invited expert from MPIL analysed the legal situation in Germany: the German constitutional system and the functioning of the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC). This discussion prepared the judges for a visit to the FCC in Karlsruhe on the same day. At the FCC, the Kyrgyz judges met with a German judge and extensively discussed the competences of the Court.
On the second day of the workshop, the experts invited by the MPFPR delivered presentations on different models of constitutional review in a comparative perspective focusing on contemporary developments and trends in constitutional justice. Topics under discussion included constitutional control in the Russian Federation, Central Asia and South Caucasus as well as in Hungary.
The last day of the workshop focused on the Kyrgyz constitutional justice system. Kyrgyz participants delivered presentations on a wide range of constitutional issues. Topics discussed included institutional independence of the Constitutional Chamber, abstract and concrete review, and the relationship between the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court of the Kyrgyz Republic before 2010 and the evolving practice of the Constitutional Chamber. Finally, the participants also explored the prospects of strengthening the constitutional review in Kyrgyzstan.
On 6 December 2013, Kyrgyz judges met their colleagues at the Constitutional Court of Austria and participated in a discussion on competencies and functions of this Court.