The Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court accepted the petition of the representatives of the Media Policy Institute on the verification of the constitutionality of the Article 4 of the Law On Guarantees of the President of Kyrgyzstan.
The Basic Law does not set any special principles for the protection of the president’s reputation.
«The president is a constitutionally established body, an institution of state power that, being a subject of public legal relations, rather than private, can not have the honor and dignity, as these categories refer to the personal non-property rights of the citizens,» the Media Policy Institute says.
In December 2016, the Constitution of Kyrgyzstan was amended regarding the powers of the Prosecutor’s Office. So, the Article 104 in the new edition describes the powers of the prosecutor’s office in an exhaustive way: the powers not indicated in it can not be exercised. At the same time, Article 104 does not provide for the representation of the interests of the president as head of state, in particular, in cases of protection of honor and dignity, by the Prosecutor General’s Office.
Thus, the constitutional basis for a special instrument for protecting the president’s reputation has been completely withdrawn from the new Basic Law.
Earlier, being the Prosecutor General, Indira Dzoldubaeva filed a number of multi-million lawsuits on the protection of honor and dignity of then President Almazbek Atambayev against the journalists and human rights activists. Representatives of the media lost all the actions.
