DUSHANBE, December 9, 2009, Asia-Plus — On January 2 2010, it will be the 85th anniversary of founding of the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region (Gorno Badakhshan or GBAO).
According to Rahmatillo Zoirov, known Tajik lawyer also leader of the Social-Democratic Party (SDPT), Gorno Badakhshan today does not meet requirements of the concept of autonomy both in terms of form and content of its political-legal and actual status.
“The region has practically lost those rights and sings of autonomy, including those concerning legislation and representation in elected bodies, which it had had in the Soviet time,” said Zoirov, “This can not help but contribute to separatist moods and centrifugal trends among representatives of this region.”
Current status of Gorno Badakhshan even does not reach the status of common administrative region, not to mention the autonomous region, Zoirov said.
“Status provided for Gorno Badakhshan by the current Constitution of the country is a step back compared to the Soviet Constitution of 1977 and the Constitution of the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic (the Tajik SSR) of 1978,” he said.
“The Constitutional Law on “On GBAO” even does not emphasize Gorno Badakhshan as form of autonomy, not to mention national-and-state autonomy as political-ethnical society,” said the expert. “There are no legible criteria of autonomy of Gorno Badakhshan in contrast to administrative province. Besides, the region does not have attributes the autonomy owns. Thus, it does not have the Charter that is adopted by referendum of the autonomous region’s population or its legislation with the right to adopt its laws and form its supreme bodies, symbolics, and certain budgetary-tax independence.”
Moreover, procedures and ways of realization of the right of Gorno Badakhshan as the subject of legislative initiative are not determined. “In other words, procedures and ways of conducting foreign policy (external economic scientific and technical, social, cultural and other relations) and features of representation in parliament are not determined,” said Zoirov, “It is just a part of the problem in terms of legislation that requires appropriate response and entering in the Constitution and legislation of the country.”
