As I have been preparing for a presentation at the Pravo-300 online conference tomorrow (on online judiciary), I came across very interesting statistics on Kazakh courts as at the end of 2019.

The statistics published by the Supreme Court of Kazakhstan shows the following:

1. Specialised Economic Courts of Almaty and Astana (first level commercial courts) decide 51.5% and 54.8% of cases, respectively, within one month of filing (in some regional courts, e.g. Almaty region, this figure can go as high as 80%, Shymkent (69.6%), Turkistan (74%));
2. Same courts in Almaty and Astana decide another 30.5% and 43% of cases in the second month of filing the claim (in other courts this figure can vary between 17-44%);
3. 0.2-3.7% of claims are decided in the third month of filing the claim;
4. 0.1-0.9% of claims are decided within three to six months of filing the claim.

On top of this one should bear in mind that it is not easy to reverse the judgment of the first instance court in appeal.

Based on this data it is very clear how important it is to act quickly in a Kazakh court proceeding, to have all of the evidence and witnesses upfront, to not delay with submissions and create the right impression right from the start and not hope to change the dynamics later in the proceeding.

This data shows how difficult it is to be a respondent and how advantageous it is to be a claimant, as time is very short.

Bakhyt Tukulov