As part of the work on the updated edition of the Constitution of Kazakhstan, the provision concerning the Russian language has been revised. This was reported by Bakyt Nurmukhanov, Deputy Chairman of the Constitutional Court, at the tenth meeting of the working group.
The changes affected Article 9. In the initial draft presented on January 31, it was stated that the Russian language is used "on par" with Kazakh (Kaz. тең) in state institutions and local government bodies. However, in the final version, the wording was changed.
Nurmakhanov noted that the word "тең" (equal) was replaced with "қатар" (alongside), thus, the final text uses the phrase "alongside" instead of "on par".
He also emphasized that these changes are mainly editorial and stylistic, aimed at achieving consistency in terminology and meaning throughout the document.
The work on the draft of the new Constitution was carried out with the participation of a broad expert group, which included representatives of the legislative and executive branches, staff from the presidential administration, as well as leading legal scholars and linguists from the country.
