Cooperation Agreement Signed Between the UIHJ and the Republican Chamber of Private Enforcement Officers of Kazakhstan

The UIHJ was represented by its 1st Vice-President, Marc Schmitz.

The purpose of the EU-Central Asia Rule of Law Platform is to improve the capacity of Central Asian countries to contribute to the modernisation and reform of their legal and judiciary systems, by developing legislation and practices in line with internationally accepted standards.

The objective of the seminar was to introduce to representatives of policy-making institutions of Kazakhstan, including representatives of the profession of enforcement officers the benefits of two Hague Conventions:
-    The Hague Convention of 15 November 1965 on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters
-    The Hague Convention of 23 November 2007 on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance.

The Hague Service Convention guarantees to the signatory nations a smooth and well organised service of documents abroad while The Hague Maintenance Convention establishes the system of cross-border cooperation for the recognition and enforcement of spousal and child support. Both would contribute to furthering the judicial reform of Kazakhstan.

The seminar was opened by Elvira Azimova, Deputy Minister of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstan and H.E. Traian Hristea, Ambassador, Head of the Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Christophe Bernasconi, Secretary General of The Hague Conference on Private International Law and Marc Schmitz presented an overview of the purpose and advantages of these conventions and explained their operation mechanisms from the perceptive of practitioners, while high-level civil servants from various Kazakh state entities attended the seminar in Astana, and in video conference in the regional offices of the Ministry of Justice, which enabled to reach out to a large number of public and private enforcement officers throughout Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan is actually considering ratifying these two important conventions, in accordance with the final recommendations adopted during the Closing session.

Presentation of the Global Code of Enforcement

During this seminar, the opportunity was given to Marc Schmitz to present the Global Code of Enforcement to the participants of the seminar.

Marc Schmitz underlined that the Global Code of Enforcement that was officially presented during the 22nd International Congress of the UIHJ in Madrid in June 2015, is intended to have a transcontinental normative value.

In relation with this Global Code of Enforcement, the 1st Vice-President of the UIHJ pointed out that the role of judicial officers is important due to the fact that any judgement that couldn't be enforced efficiently is without any value.

A Russian translation of the articles of the Code was given at the disposal of the participants of the seminar who were pleased about this initiative.

Meeting with the Minister of Justice and cooperation agreement signed with the Chamber of Private Enforcement Officers

The Republic of Kazakhstan is an associated member of the UIHJ since 2007 through the Supreme Court of Kazakhstan.

After solving all organisational and training issues first private enforcement agents have started to work on 10th September 2011. At that time the Republic of Kazakhstan had 170 private enforcement agents. It was assumed that in this perspective private enforcement agents completely replace state enforcement officers.

Finally, in February 2015, the Charter of the Republican Chamber of Private Enforcement Officers was approved.

It seems to be a logical consequence that this new Chamber should join the UIHJ and represent as from now our colleagues from Kazakhstan inside of our world organisation.

In relation with this, a preliminary meeting was organised between Berik Imashev, Minister of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Sergey Li, Chairman of the Republican Chamber of Private Enforcement Officers and Marc Schmitz.

Mr Imashev explained that it was the explicit wish of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbaev himself to establish Private Enforcement Officers in Kazakhstan. According to Mr Nazarbaev “the strict enforcement of legal decisions will be facilitated by the installation of a system of liberal judicial officers”.

At the end of the meeting with the Minister of Justice, a cooperation agreement was signed between the UIHJ and the new Republican Chamber of Private Enforcement Officers of Kazakhstan.

The UIHJ would like to welcome our colleagues from Kazakhstan inside of our big family.