Political parties of Russia and Kazakhstan: comparative legal analysis of the legislation

Abstract

The subject of this article is the comparison of the legislation of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Kazakhstan with regards to regulation of the establishment and activity of political parties. Multi-party system became a new phenomenon for both countries at the turn of the XXI century, and one of the tasks faced by the states consisted in its proper normative regulation. History of the countries did not provide adequate source material for the establishment of genuine multi-party system. The political parties basically functioned in the atmosphere of legal vacuum, which attached the attributes of chaos to the political life. Despite the common starting point along with the external similarity of party system in Russia and Kazakhstan, the legislation on parties has national specificity. Kazakhstan's legislation at the constitutional level enshrines the importance of parties for public life of the country. The first law on political parties was adopted in 1996, while the effective law has a different conceptual framework – it arguably became the product of evolution of the party system and corresponds with its current state. Russian legislation on political parties has a shorter history, and clearly is in a formative stage, which is testified by a number of amendments made to the corresponding federal law. However, the legislation of both Russia and Kazakhstan has a number of advantages that should be considered in further improvement of the normative legal base, which is especially relevant in a time of political transformation that affected both countries.