Why Is It Hard to Build a Court That Performs?

Recent work in comparative judicial politics emphasized that authoritarian regimes sometimes empower courts, and have these courts perform distinct functions aimed at regime durability: (Ginsburg and Moustafa 2008; Moustafa 2014) legitimacy, monitoring agents, economic credibility, delegating controversial reforms.

Kazakhstan: The Institutional Backdrop

• Despite bills proposed as early as 2009 and international advocacy to provide for courts that can limit state agency predation, Kazakhstan lacked a distinct administrative jurisdiction for decades—citizen and enterprise suits against the state scattered across civil and economic courts. Strict control over judiciary via formal and informal mechanisms.

In 2019, Kazakhstan Passed a New Administrative Code

• The Administrative Procedures and Process Code established specialized administrative courts at every level
• Mandated an “active role” for judges: investigate facts, assist parties, shift burden of proof to agencies

A Confluence — and the Piece I Isolate

As with any social phenomenon, there is not a single cause:

• The reform had executive backing; the courts wield borrowed authority, leaning on the President’s public endorsement of administrative justice.
• The legal provisions established a real administrative jurisdiction and an “active-role” mandate.
• A bench deliberately seeded with lateral judges (bokoviki) — the piece this paper can isolate and measure.

The 2021 Reform and Research Design

To examine this, I look at Kazakhstan’s SKAD—the Supreme Court’s Administrative Collegium, created by the 2019 reform to review citizen vs. state disputes. This court was originally almost evenly split among individuals who had never been judges before: that is, 5 lateral (bokoviki) judges, including former government employees and private practice attorneys.

Deliberate Panel Mixing

Figure 1

Randomization test | Panel specialization by dispute type | Judge tenure

How a Case Reaches the SKAD — and the Question

Figure 2

The question: when the SKAD reverses, does it reverse differently depending on who lost below: the citizen-plaintiff or the state agency?

Lateral Presence Increases Reversals

Figure 3

Full logit table | LPM | Second diff. | Bootstrap

Rapporteur Effect

Figure 4

Lateral rapporteurs are associated with higher citizen reversal rates and lower government reversal rates.

Full logit table | LPM | Second diff. | Jackknife | Bootstrap

Finding 3: Heterogeneous Effects by Defendant

Figure 5

Full table

Lateral Judges Also Issue More Special Rulings

Figure 6

Special-ruling models

Teaching the State: The Glovo Case (Ospan v. PCE)

A courier’s wage account is frozen for an inherited debt; the appeal calls him a contractor. The SKAD reclassifies the Glovo agreement as hidden employment, surveying gig-economy rulings from 15 jurisdictions (Rider v. Glovo Spain · Uber v. Aslam UK · Lawson v. Grubhub US · Deliveroo NL …) and ILO Recommendation № 198 — and shields the wages.

Суд кассационной инстанции … усмотрел скрытые трудовые правоотношения … в том числе [по признакам] статьи 27 Трудового кодекса … и в рекомендациях Международной организации труда № 198.

A 20-question inquiry to the Ministry and to Glovo, and a 20-MRP sanction on Glovo for ignoring it — then a rebuke of the Ministry’s own reply:

На данный запрос от Министерства поступил ответ с формальными и поверхностными пояснениями.

The special ruling instructs the Ministry to fix both enforcement and the statute:

Министерству … следует обратить внимание … в сфере выявления и пресечения скрытых трудовых правоотношений … [и] проработать вопросы по совершенствованию … законодательства … к стандартам наиболее развитых стран.

→ Special ruling to the Minister of Labour and Social Protection.

Reversal Rate Over Time

Figure 7

Conclusion

Thank You

Alisher Juzgenbayev

alisher.juzgenbayev@law.northwestern.edu

Northwestern University — Dept. of Political Science / Pritzker School of Law