D.K. Ospanova,

A.O. Ospanov

KarSU named after E.A. Buketov

Strengthening the non-governmental sector in the Republic of Kazakhstan as the most essential element in the process of Civil Society formation

When the Republic of Kazakhstan became a sovereign state, the problem of civil society started being taken a keen interest. As it is stated in the Concept of Civil Society Development in the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2006-2011, “civil society development is a main condition for formation of a democratic, secular, law-governed, and social state. Social progress, democratic development, and economic upturn are possible to take place in case of active involvement of citizens in all vital major spheres of their society” [1]. The ideas of civil society were accepted as an attempt to set humanistic forms of a social order, which were aimed at overcoming the authoritarian regime.

While Kazakhstan was following the direction towards to democratic reforms and market economy formation, many problems were detected, which were not directly concerned with material need fulfillment of people. In most of the countries mouthpieces of some social groups are non-governmental (non-profit) organizations (NGOs), the main feature of which is a lack of a drive to gain a commercial profit. Nearly in all countries of the world with rare exception non-profit organizations (NPO) are allowed to carry on business, but as long as it meets statutory non-commercial objectives. Their role at the present stage comes to joining together efforts of individuals for the purpose of solving problems of certain groups that were formed due to interests, protection, and promotion of certain interests oriented to resolve the most topical issues including social ones.

From foreign literature we can see that NGOs have been subjected to researches for a long time already. Their implication, objective laws, legal status, and their strengthening role in rendering assistance to the state in problem solving concerned with protection of human rights, conservation of the environment and etc are under consideration.

Today the society faced the situation, when the state does not have sufficient financial assets to research approaches of dealing the issues related to fulfillment of essential needs of individuals. On the other hand, business potentially is to satisfy all human needs especially under conditions of the market economy. However, business community is mainly interested only in things that can earn profit. In any society regardless of its level of prosperity there are problems, the solution of which directly cannot yield a profit, but their eliminations can do a lot of good for society.

The origins of “the revolutionary breakthrough” in activity of non-governmental organizations according to K.Suter are in increasing discontent of citizens in their government’s actions. The citizens have doubts that the government possesses adequate information to make accurate and balanced decisions in the international relation policy [2].

Therefore, according to Samilleri and Falk, humankind comes into the stage of such development of international relations, when a state voluntarily loses monopoly of the singular subjects of international relations” [3].

At the present time more and more states begin to realize that it is necessary to search for new, in many respects alternative ways to solve problems of human survival, to form new mechanisms, and to readjust current ones for harmonization of efforts not only by states in this direction but also by the world population itself. One of factual but not used opportunities is acceptance by states the partner’s role of their own societies represented by a large number of non-governmental organizations, the activity of which threatens by no means the democratic regime in the international arena. Moreover, it strengthens capacities of its own state, promotes its authority for world public opinion, and encourages foreign policy acts by governments.

Social sphere in the Republic of Kazakhstan was traditionally not a priority, although lately we can see a clear tendency towards shifting the accents, i.e. shifting towards the system of society development “for sake of a human being”. This economy was called a socially oriented market economy [4].

In well developed countries with democratic regime the most as well as in developing countries which are on the stage of shifting to the market economy model, what is followed by setting and promoting democratic norms and principles, the idea that later was transformed into the concept of sustainable development, obtained a wide circulation. For the last few decades the validity of the model considering economic growth to be a basis for society development is quite often open to question. As the experience in different countries confirms the fact that economic growth caused by development of the market section is not able to reduce the number of needy persons, on the contrary, more often it leads to an increasing gap between the poor and the rich. Today the priorities are given to human development, his civil freedoms, the realization of which is possible under the conditions of social justice regulated at the regional and local levels, and provided that socially oriented economic policy is pursued.

Today the society of Kazakhstan generally joined its efforts with intent to achieve sustainable development and to solve the most topical issues by common efforts. In order to have a successful integration of the Republic of Kazakhstan into the World Community, and for non-profit organizations in Kazakhstan to be able to become full-fledged members of reformations that are made today at the local level for the purpose of reaching better standards of life, Kazakhstan must take its place by accepting new global targets. The significant role in this process is given to NGO activity at the national level.

For the last decades the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is getting more important in political matters, the target function of NGOs as a subject of politics and an essential element of the political system is getting intensified. Being subjects of social and political actions, non-governmental organizations consolidate citizens on the basis of important targets for a part of this population, vocalize, aggregate interests of the broad sections of the people, and lobby them in state institutions. Moreover, NGOs do not only cooperate with governmental institutions in solution of social disputes, human self-determination, realization of civic initiatives, but also in a number of cases they efficiently substitute structures of state administration as well as political parties by this means transforming the political system and its institutions, they strengthen the political system or make it unsteady instead.

Moreover, NGOs are as a rule a reliable element of “feedback” between citizens and state bodies; in this case the political regime receives adequate data on efficiency of government’s decisions and feedback on them from the population. The history of civil society formation proves that non-governmental organizations encourage an active public involvement, and it in its turn transforms into an incentive of economic development and progress of our state.

The urgency of the study of the role of non-governmental organizations is determined by a lack in Kazakhstan by the present moment researches on the history of formation and development of non-governmental (non-profit) organizations. This information void in terms of possibilities of NGO involvement in Kazakhstan in state bodies’ work defines the urgency and timeliness of this research.

The process of democratization that began in Kazakhstan in the second half of the 1980s caused the necessity of modernization of political institutions and civil society formation. The change of the political regime entailed the crisis in the system of the political authority and a need in its rearrangement, provided that the resources of new civil and governmental institutions that are able to ensure, according to current needs, an adequate fulfillment of changed state functions at the local level were used. This institution is a developing NGO. Its development and protection are essential conditions of realization foundations of the democratic regime, decentralization of the state authority for the benefits of economic progress and people’s welfare, and exercise of citizens’ rights in their direct participation in the management of state affairs.

The explosion of interest in NGOs is determined by significant changes that took place since 1985 in social, political, and economic spheres. These changes are defined by dissolution of the socialist system and formation of free and democratic societies in the countries ruled by the totalitarian regime for a long period of time. NGO, being an independent institution of civil society, takes a special place and performs its own role in the political system of society. One of the main purposes of NGOs is to consolidate people and transform them into a community with common goals for everyone. All over the world NGO is given a significant role; it is considered as an initial level of control, a necessary characteristic of a democratic society, and an academy for political leaders.

Announcing the intent to meet the requirements of democratic states, Kazakhstan in the 90s of the 20^th century commenced NGO institutionalization and enshrined the right of citizens for its realization in the Constitution. In addition, it was intended that NGO would be one of the bases of a constitutional form of government as well as a fundamental principle of arrangement of the authorities, which along with the principle of division of powers, defines the governance system [5].

It should be mentioned that the government of Kazakhstan fully realize the significance of development of civil society institution development to form a democratic and law-governed state. Moreover, it does not only realize but also offers orientation for the state machinery and the whole society to solve this target.

Thus, in the Message by the president of Kazakhstan on the main directions of domestic and foreign policy the head of the state determined further strengthening civil society institutions as an essential course for democratization of the political system in the country.

Moreover, the president mentioned the necessity to support powerful and highly responsible parties, offered to introduce the principle of economic support for non-governmental organizations, and appealed for a large-scale cooperation with them, which was the first time set in motion by the First Civil Forum held in October 2003.

It gives the evidence that today the state pays due regard to issues of development of civil society institutions.

Enhancement of law order, corruption combat, environmental protection, and provision of public amenities, all these and other issues can hardly be effectually solved by efforts of state bodies’ control only without an active support from the public at large. Moreover, certainly, civil society institutions must be the connecting link in cooperation between state bodies and citizens in these and many other directions

However, an efficient and mutually-beneficial cooperation between the state and society will be impossible, until NGOs and other civil society institutions do not take the appropriate steps towards each other.

In a well developed democratic and law-governed state there is no need for the authorities to interfere in activity of civil society institutions, which can solve all the targets by themselves. However, as it was mentioned above, Kazakhstan is still the on the way to become such a state. All necessary conditions have not been created yet for civil society institutions to be able to resolve all issues by themselves.

Therefore, the objective of the state at this stage consists in providing first-order conditions for a successful performing of civil society institutions, in promoting them, and sometimes, as the experience proves, in urging them for their activity to meet the needs of society.

We can see the proofs that Kazakhstan is on the way of realizing this circumstance by means of try-and-error method. Thus, since Kazakhstan became an independent state, some hundreds of new laws and about a thousand of amendments were adopted.

However, in the majority of cases the focus of these laws was lopsided and quite crude: all actions came to a simple “tightening the screws». In other words, for instance, in order to make citizens comply with the law it is required to have a constant increasing number of sanctions for its violation. Moreover, sometimes for these purposes autonomous state bodies were formed.

It stands to reason that such an approach to the problem solving turned to have low efficiency and did not fulfill the expectations. Despite a regular increasing charge, the number of law offences did not drastically grow down.

In addition, the norm setting policy mentioned above did not contribute to the formation of respectful attitude to the law by the citizens as well as to their commitment to meet its demands, but, on the contrary, in some way it instigated legal nihilism and habituation by all means to get away with unreasonably severe penalties.

However, in law-governed states the problem to ensure law compliance is solved not by means of a primitive way of increasing sanctions of punishment, but a way of providing conditions under which a violation becomes an impossible or unfavourable thing. For this matter the potential of civil society institutions is actively taken advantage of, since in many cases it is impossible by efforts of only state bodies to ensure efficient control over implementation of all regulations.

So that for civil society institutions to be able to take an active part in provision of law-obedience, in many states at the legislative level their activity is provided with incentives and promoted by means of granting them a right of keeping some part of the resources disposed from a violator due to the law.

As the result of this support civil society institutions get an opportunity to have a sustainable development and perform functions that are assigned by their society well.

In Kazakhstan civil society institutions also have the potential to play more significant role in issues which are not required direct government interference. Under the condition of a well-arranged organization these institutions would be able to become that necessary public “self-regulator” that does not have a need to be controlled by the state. On the part of the government in terms of this case it is just required to establish a legal framework within which civil society institutions must perform their activity and must not cross that line.

However, today they do not have sufficient financial support, and in order to do at least some good sometimes they have to “beg for alms”, nearly soliciting grants from contributors or the government.

In our opinion, the Law of Kazakhstan is required to insert amendments which would give an opportunity for non-governmental organizations to receive a rightful bonus for their socially beneficial work.

Therefore, the Kazakhstan-European Fund for Law Research and Innovation drafted a number of projected laws to reach this goal and submitted its proposals for the appropriate authorized bodies.

Under such conditions 35 thousand of non-profit organizations in Kazakhstan would be able to make much more contributions in solution of issues that the society faces, and by this means releasing state bodies from this routine work for them to be able to resolve more grave issues.

For instance, after receiving economic incentives, non-governmental organizations of customers would have an opportunity to impose the public control on all manufactures and sales clerks, by forcing them under penalty of economic sanctions to strictly comply with the law in the terms of standardization, certification, sanitary and epidemiological welfare of the population, and etc. The tight control by social ecological organizations would rapidly make all owners of sources of environmental pollution strictly comply with all environmental laws.

It is common knowledge that nowadays authorized state bodies are not able (and in some cases they have no desire to do that) to take charge in the mentioned spheres. However, non-governmental organizations, among other matters, having material interests, certainly, will be able entirely by civil methods (by means of claims, lawsuits, and etc) to control the situation in such way that law violation will merely become inexpedient.

Then the staff of these authorized state bodies can be reduced or involved in achieving other governmental targets.

One of the most important matters for a law-governed state is protection of human rights. Non-governmental organizations can also provide the government with lots of support to solve this issue.

The governmental institutions that we have today are to protect human rights (we mean courts, prosecutor’s offices, law enforcement bodies, commissioners for human rights), but they do not perform their functions in a proper way.

The lack of effect of the current state control system originates from the fact that all state officials, both who infringes on citizens’ rights, and the ones who must supervise their exercise, do not nearly depend upon the citizens. Therefore, when it comes to legal relationship between a state and a citizen, there must be control from the both parts. It is necessary that officials’ actions are not only controlled by other officials, but also by their citizens whose rights are violated.

Involvement of NGO foundations for human rights can be very efficient in regard to claims against official bodies committing breaches of citizens’ statutory rights and interests. Being in charge to protect rights and freedoms of all individuals due to the mission, NGOs for human rights have all possibilities to become a real “helping hand” for state bodies in these matters.

In addition, for these organizations to have more motivation state orders can be placed by means of a commissioner for human rights. For this matter it would be reasonable to make a commissioner for human rights also responsible for NGO’s activity coordination and supervision over its progress.

Thus, authorized agents all over the country would have the whole group of their helpers represented by organizations for human rights, and possibilities to give required legal assistance would drastically go up. The most essential thing is that the population would see visible efficiency from non-governmental organizations [6].

At the present time civil society is considered to be a universal value and an ideal type of social order. It is known that under the soviet system civil society was taken over; all spheres of social life, social structures became owned by the government, where the party transformed into the structure that hierarchically was above the state. Therefore, when Kazakhstan became an independent state, the Republic had to form the democratic political system before economic, social, and cultural presuppositions came to fruition [7].

The urgent character of non-governmental sector support in the Republic of Kazakhstan is determined by wide and closely interrelated changes that occur in the country and the world for the last years and especially for the very recent time. Strengthening the force of impact of social power on the state can be recognized by growth in volumes and mainly in quality of its commitment and further qualification raising [4].

To sum up the above-mentioned we want to declare emphatically that we believe in strengthening civil society institutions to be a key condition for realization of constitutional provisions on the status of Kazakhstan to be a democratic and law-governed state.

Reference list:

1. The Concept of Civil Society Development in the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2006 – 2011. – Astana, 2006. p. 64.

2. Keith D. Suter The UN and NGO, in Frank Barnaby, ed.. Building a more democratic UN. Proceedings of CAMDUN -1 (London; Frank Cass, 1991). – p. 16.

3. Camilleri J., Falk J. The end of Sovereignty? The politics of a shrinking and fragmenting world, Aldershot. UK. 1992. – p.32.

4. Botnev Y.V. Constitutional and legal regulation of non-governmental organizations for human rights in the Russian Federation // http://discollection.ru/article/07022008_botnev_jurij_vladimirovich_71326

5. Dosmagambetova G. Institutional formation and development outlook of local self-government in Kazakhstan // Sayasat-Policy. – 2006. – №6. – p. 27 – 30.

6. Shnitkovskiy V. NGO is to be realization of the democratic and legal institution in Kazakhstan // Jurist. – 2005. – № 11. – p. 70 – 72.

7. Gabdullina K.G. Civil Society and peculiarities of social and political transformation in the Republic of Kazakhstan: Social policy and image of the Republic of Kazakhstan. – 2007. – № 4. – p. 88 – 95.