Building of the Constitutional Court of the Kyrgyz Republic. Photo: Fergana
Kyrgyzstan’s Constitutional Court on 10 December 2025 ruled that reinstating the death penalty through a constitutional amendment is impermissible and legally impossible, finding that such a move contradicts the Constitution and the country’s international obligations.
According to a press release issued by the Court, judges reviewed a request from the administration of President Sadyr Japarov concerning draft amendments that would allow capital punishment for the rape of children and for murder involving rape. In its analysis, the Court assessed the proposed changes in relation to the Constitution as an integrated system and examined their impact on the fundamental principles of constitutional order, which place human rights, freedoms, and the democratic character of the state at the center.
The Court concluded that reinstating the death penalty is incompatible with the Constitution. It emphasized that human rights and freedoms are established by the Constitution as the highest value. The ruling highlights that the system of guarantees for these rights forms the foundation of the constitutional order and defines the permissible limits of constitutional change. The Court stressed the inadmissibility of “reverse development” (non-regress) in the level of human rights protection, noting that the stability and consistency of guarantees reflect the priority of the individual and human dignity. In this context, the abolition of the death penalty and the primacy of the right to life carry both normative and deeply value-based significance.
The Court also pointed to the international-law dimension. Since the Constitution of the Kyrgyz Republic stipulates that universally recognized principles and norms of international law are part of the country’s legal system, the state is obliged to comply with ratified treaties when making internal decisions. Citing the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, the Court noted that a state cannot justify non-compliance with an international treaty by invoking domestic law, and that terminating or suspending a treaty is strictly limited by its own provisions.
On the basis of its constitutional and international-law analysis, the Constitutional Court determined that reinstating the death penalty through a constitutional amendment is inconsistent with the Constitution and is both impermissible and legally impossible. As a result, the draft law proposing changes to the Constitution may not be put to a referendum, and all procedures to advance it are terminated once the Court’s conclusion enters into force.
