Four months on, the court has time for 214 cases but not this one

On 7 October the Supreme Court put its register of pending cases online for the first time. It lists 214 matters, with the date each was filed and where it stands. One of them is In re the Elective Governor Acts (Inability of the Governor). Its status is “awaiting listing”. It has been awaiting listing since June.

The petition was filed by the lawyers Nazira Abdykadyrova of Talas and Vitaly Kuzmenko of Nurzhan for the three Russo-aligned deputies in the Mejlis, after the Mejlis refused to hold a hearing on the Governor’s health. It asks three questions the Elective Governor Acts of 1992 do not answer: whether a formal declaration is needed before the Lieutenant Governor exercises the Governor’s powers in his own right, who may make it, and whether a Governor who cannot appear in person may be nominated for re-election.

Erlan Toktarov has not been seen in public since July 2024. His recorded addresses continue. The next election is on 2 November 2027, and nominations open in the summer.

Hypothetical, says the government

The government’s written answer, now among the papers listed in the register, says the questions are “hypothetical” because the Governor is not incapacitated, and that any question of inability “belongs to the legislature”, as the government argued when a similar question was raised in 2014. Government counsel did not answer the Times’ question about how the Mejlis could decide a matter it has declined to discuss.

Ms Abdykadyrova said the court’s silence was itself an answer. “Every month without a hearing makes the questions less hypothetical, not more,” she said. Mr Kuzmenko said the deputies would ask the court in writing this month to fix a date. “We are not asking it to say anything about the Governor’s health,” he said. “We are asking it to say what the law is.”

The court’s chief registrar, Kanyshai Arykova, told reporters last week that the justices decide the order in which cases are heard. Of the 214 matters on the register, nine are constitutional references. The oldest pending appeal was filed in November 2023.

The calendar

Under the 2015 procedures of the Territorial Election Commission, a candidate signs the residence declaration in person before a commissioner. The opposition says a Governor who cannot appear cannot be registered. The DPI says a commissioner can witness the signature at the Governor’s residence. The party has not said whether it will nominate the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor or anyone else, beyond “at the proper time”. In 2023 its congress met in August.

A survey by the Institute of Sociology at Talas State University found in March that 61 percent of respondents considered official information about the Governor’s health insufficient, up from 58 percent a year earlier.