OREANDA-NEWS. May 22, 2009. The two-day seminar on improvement of correctional labour legislation of Turkmenistan was conducted in Ashgabat. The forum is organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan, the Turkmen National Institute for Democracy and Human Rights under President of Turkmenistan (TNIDHR), the British Embassy in Turkmenistan and the Support for Legal and Judicial reforms in Central Asia Project of the German Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ).

The roundtable brought together the officials of the MFA, the Ministry of Justice, the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Supreme Court, the Bar, TNIDHR, the Institute of State and Law under President of Turkmenistan, journalists. The international experts – a senior staff scientist Anton Shelupanov and an expert in criminal law Vladimir Syomushkin (Royal University of London) and a judge of the Bremen court Carsten Bauer had arrived in the Turkmen capital to take part in the seminar.

Focusing on importance of the legal reform implemented in Turkmenistan on the initiative and under the leadership of President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov the forum participants highly appreciate the obvious success of this reform and in this context the commitment of the Turkmen state and society to the strategy of democratic development. As is known in accordance with the Resolution of the Turkmen leader the State Commission responsible for considering the petitions of citizens on the activities of law enforcement agencies was established and other relevant measures were taken. The important steps in this area included establishment of the Interagency Commission for Monitoring the International Human Rights Commitments of Turkmenistan and the State Commission fro Improvement of the Legislation of Turkmenistan. In this regard emphasis was put on the significance of the new Constitution of Turkmenistan that stood as a guarantor of the rights and freedoms of citizens adopted last September.

A key factor of the legal reform was bringing the national legislation in compliance with international norms. In this context the forum participants noted that the legal sphere was traditionally a major aspect of the dialogue with foreign partners – the international organisations and leading specialists, European legal experts in particular. Thus, last year the work to develop the concept for the reforms of the penal system of Turkmenistan was launched in collaboration with the British Embassy to Turkmenistan and the GTZ Project. The work to draft the new Criminal Punishment Code in compliance with international norms was carried out in the country.

In addition, the international conferences, seminars, trainings, roundtables and study tours were organized for Turkmen parliamentarians and law enforcement officers in the framework of the ongoing programmes and projects of cooperation with the European institutions. In particular, Turkmen specialists had made the study tours to Great Britain and the FRG to get acquainted with the structure and functioning of the penal systems of these countries. This June Turkmen law enforcement officers will visit Kazakhstan to study the practice of implementing the legal standards in the legal sphere.