Kazakhstan · Constitution
Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan
Adopted by referendum in August 1995 and amended in 1998, 2007, 2011, 2017 and most substantially in 2022. It establishes a unitary presidential republic with a bicameral Parliament, a guarantee of rights in Section II, and Kazakh as the state language with Russian used officially on equal terms in state administration. The 2022 amendments limited the President to a single seven-year term, stripped the first President of his special constitutional status, banned close relatives of the President from senior public office, abolished the death penalty outright, and converted the Constitutional Council into a Constitutional Court open to individual petition.
The constitutional text
Adopted by referendum in August 1995 and amended in 1998, 2007, 2011, 2017 and most substantially in 2022. It establishes a unitary presidential republic with a bicameral Parliament, a guarantee of rights in Section II, and Kazakh as the state language with Russian used officially on equal terms in state administration. The 2022 amendments limited the President to a single seven-year term, stripped the first President of his special constitutional status, banned close relatives of the President from senior public office, abolished the death penalty outright, and converted the Constitutional Council into a Constitutional Court open to individual petition.
Separation of powers
Unitary. Seventeen regions (oblasts) and three cities of republican significance — Astana, Almaty and Shymkent — each headed by an akim appointed by the President. Local representative assemblies (maslikhats) have limited competence. Overlaid on this is the Astana International Financial Centre, a territorially delimited zone with its own court, arbitration centre, regulator and body of law that operates outside the national legal order.
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