The Committee on Constitutional Legislation, State Structure, Judicial, Legal Issues and Regulations of the Parliament of Kyrgyzstan considered and approved the draft law «On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts (the Criminal Procedure Code, the Law «On the Procedure and Conditions of Detention of Persons Detained on Suspicion and Charge of Committing Crimes»)».
The initiator of the bill is MP Dastan Bekeshev.
According to him, the document is designed to facilitate access to information for participants in criminal proceedings who have vision problems. The draft law proposes to introduce an additional participant in criminal proceedings, who can provide assistant services for a blind participant in criminal proceedings.
«Blind and visually impaired people do not have the ability to read documents or familiarize themselves with case materials. Therefore, there must be a special assistant. In many cases, the lawyer can assist. But there are different situations, the lawyer can say: «I will only defend you and that’s all». And such people, who have no close relatives, can not read on their own, they need an assistant,» Dastan Bekeshev said.
He added that the proposed norm will not require money from the state budget.
«The Cabinet of Ministers says that funds are needed for this. But it doesn’t. It can happen once a year or maximum once in two years. This is not a norm that will affect the budget,» the deputy said.
He also outlined the conditions of detention of prisoners. According to Dastan Bekeshev, people with vision problems have no opportunity to read or listen to audiobooks in pre-trial detention centers.
«As you know, a person in a pre-trial detention center has the right to read books. There is a special library there. It is possible not to print Braille books for them, but to order them,» he said.
Following the discussion, the committee members adopted the bill in the first reading.
