KYRGYZSTAN TODAY Policy briefs on - Department of Geography

Types and scale of judicial corruption
In recent years, almost all documents that describe the socio-economic and political
situation in the Kyrgyz Republic mention corruption. One resolution of the Kyrgyz
Security Council concluded that “Corruption activities and other related crimes go
deeper into such areas as economy, finances, public administration and services, which
significantly impedes social, economic, political and democratic reforms in the Kyrgyz
Republic” [11].
The escalation of corruption and its qualities goes hand-in-hand with depreciation
of spiritual values, admissibility of means to increase prosperity, and elimination of
the regulators of civilized social behavior, such as morality, law, and public opinion.
This is where the greatest danger of corruption lies as a form of social pathology lies
[1, p. 5]. Another dangerous trend in the development of corruption is increasing public
tolerance of corruption.
One of the main causes of the change of the political regime in Kyrgyzstan in 2005
was rampant corruption, including corruption in the judiciary, which covered the entire
country and was largely condoned and even encouraged by authorities.
Before evaluating corruption in the judiciary, it is crucial to clarify terms. In a broad
sense, by corruption we mean a social institution, one aspect of the management system
that is closely related to other social institutions, mostly political, economic and cultural
ones.
Corruption is a complicated and complex social phenomenon with multiple
layers and structures, and expressed through various corrupt actions. Such actions are
profit-oriented, and they damage the functioning of society and the state in general. In
legislative terms, corruption may be briefly defined as: violating the law, mostly through
crimes, by taking bribes, abusing authority and so on for unofficial purposes [6, p. 1].
Therefore, using this logic one can say that judicial corruption is using the status of a
judge for unofficial purposes.
Rasma Karklins talks about the following types of corrupt actions in the judiciary:
– trade in court decisions;
– falsified legal prosecution, using scapegoats;
– absence of legal prosecution.
This classification seems too narrow. Corruption in the courts includes any type
of illegal influence that undermines the impartiality of court proceedings and court
decisions, from giving bribes to judges to arranging court decisions in favor of one
litigant or refusing to make a ruling at all. Corruption in the courts includes the abuse of
funds allocated for the functioning of the judiciary and judicial authority. An example is
a case when a judge hires his or her family members as court employees, or manipulates
contracts on constructing or furnishing courtrooms. Corruption can be manifested in
biased distribution of judges to handle specific cases, or to conduct pre-trial procedures,
for example when a court clerk ostensibly loses cases or evidence in exchange for certain
remuneration. Corruption can be a factor in any proceeding or court decision, as well as
in executing court decisions and verdicts, or the lack thereof [14].
The experts 1 surveyed identified the following features of judicial corruption:
• existence of concrete subjects involved in corrupt relations (a corrupt judge and
a client), distribution of social roles (e.g., bribe-giver, bribe-receiver, mediator);
1
The method of expert evaluations was used for the purpose of this article. The experts who were
surveyed are court employees, law enforcement officers and defense attorneys.
145