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Turkmenistan
Criminal Justice
The 1992 constitution declares that Turkmenistan is a state
based on the rule of law, and that the constitution is the supreme
law of the land. As one of the three branches of government, the
judiciary is charged with upholding the constitution and the Supreme
Law, as the national codex of civil and criminal law is called.
The Ministry of Justice oversees the judicial system, while the
Office of the Procurator General is responsible for ensuring that
investigative agencies and court proceedings are in compliance
with the constitution and the Supreme Law. The president appoints
the republic's procurator general and the procurators in each
province, and the procurator general appoints those for the smallest
political jurisdictions, the districts and the cities.
The court system is divided into three levels. At the highest
level, the Supreme Court consists of twenty-two members, including
a president and associate judges, and is divided into civil, criminal,
and military chambers. The Supreme Court hears only cases of national
importance; it does not function as an appeals court. At the next
level, appellate courts function as courts of appeal in the six
provinces and the city of Ashgabat. Sixty-one trial courts operate
in the districts and in some cities, with jurisdiction over civil,
criminal, and administrative matters. In courts at this level,
a panel of judges presides in civil and criminal suits, and typically
one judge decides administrative cases. Outside this structure,
military courts decide cases involving military discipline and
crimes committed by and against military personnel. Also, the
Supreme Economic Court performs the same function as the state
arbitration court of the Soviet period, arbitrating disputes between
enterprises and state agencies. The constitution stipulates that
all judges at all levels are appointed by the president to terms
of five years, and they may be reappointed indefinitely. Enjoying
immunity from criminal and civil liability for their judicial
actions, judges can be removed only for cause.
In 1996, thirteen crimes were punishable by death, but few executions
were known to have been carried out. Prison riots in 1996 revealed
that prison administration is corrupt and that conditions are
overcrowded and squalid.
Observers of several trends in the administration of justice
in this court system have concluded that rudimentary elements
of legal culture are absent in the implementation of legal proceedings
in Turkmenistan. First, the judiciary is subservient to the Ministry
of Justice, and it is especially deferential to the wishes of
the president. Second, because the Office of the Procurator General
fills the roles of grand jury, criminal investigator, and public
prosecutor, it dominates the judicial process, especially criminal
proceedings. Third, disregard for due process occurs frequently
when higher officials apply pressure to judges concerned about
reappointment, a practice known as "telephone justice." Fourth,
the legal system disregards the role of lawyers in civil and criminal
proceedings, and the Ministry of Justice has not permitted an
organized bar. Finally, the republic's citizenry remains largely
ignorant of the procedures and issues involved in the nation's
legal system.
The condition of the legal system and international doubts about
human rights in Turkmenistan are indicators that this potentially
prosperous former Soviet republic is far from Western-style democracy,
despite the stability its government has achieved and the eagerness
with which Western investors have approached it. Future years
will determine whether this is a transitional stage of independent
democracy, whether liberation from the Soviet empire has produced
a permanently authoritarian nation, or whether the independent
stance of the mid-1990s will yield to closer ties and more economic
and military reliance on the Russian Federation.
* * *
The social structure of the Turkmen people is studied in The
Yomut Turkmen by William Irons. Traditional religious practices
are described in an article by Vladimir Basilov, "Popular Islam
in Central Asia and Kazakhstan," which appeared in the Journal
of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs in 1987. Murray
Feshbach and Alfred Friendly, Jr. describe environmental and health
conditions in Ecocide in the USSR . Detailed current
information on the economy is provided in country studies by the
International Monetary Fund (1994), the World Bank (1994), and
the Economist Intelligence Unit. Summaries of postindependence
political events are supplied by Bess Brown in a series of articles
in 1992 and 1993 issues of RFE/RL Research Report . Concise
accounts and statistics on Turkmenistan's current national security
position are found in Jane's Sentinel Regional Security Assessment:
Commonwealth of Independent States , and further statistics
are available in annual issues of The Military Balance
. (For further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)
Data as of March 1996
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