The Prosecutor General's Office of the Republic of Kazakhstan continues to develop actively and increase cooperation with colleagues from other countries, DKNews.kz reports.
The main legal basis for this is bilateral agreements in the criminal law sphere. 72 of them have been concluded with 34 states for today.
Kazakhstan's participation in multilateral conventions significantly expands the number of our partners.
For example, Kazakhstan's accession to three inter-American conventions (on extradition, on legal assistance in criminal matters, on serving criminal sentences abroad) allows requesting assistance from 27 countries of North and South America.
The signing and ratification of international treaties is preceded by a long, often multi-year, and painstaking work of prosecutors.
The negotiations themselves include holding repeated meetings and consultations, working out compromise solutions on controversial issues and much more.
For example, in the near future we plan to complete the signing of a full package of agreements with Vietnam.
This work started 6 years ago. Two treaties have now been signed and ratified with Vietnam (on extradition and on legal assistance in criminal cases).
In April of this year, Kazakh prosecutors met with Vietnamese colleagues in Hanoi, where they agreed to sign an agreement on the transfer of convicts.
We are doing similar work with colleagues from Hong Kong. At the end of April, we expect a delegation of the Hong Kong Department of Justice to arrive in Astana to discuss draft agreements between our countries.
It is worth noting that the absence of agreements is not an obstacle to cooperation with foreign countries.
The countries with which there are no treaties, issues of legal assistance are considered on the basis of the principle of reciprocity in force in international law. At the same time, we are guided by the requirement of mutual recognition of the act as a crime.
So, the other day, the prosecutors of Kazakhstan held a meeting with the leadership of the Federal Ministry of Justice of Austria and the Office of the Attorney General of Malta.
We have agreed with them to provide each other with legal assistance on the principle of reciprocity and have established an exchange of requests in electronic format.
The same agreement was reached with Dutch colleagues during the visit of the staff of the Prosecutor General's Office of Kazakhstan to Amsterdam.
Issues of concluding bilateral agreements in the criminal law sphere and providing assistance to Kazakhstan on accession to the Council of Europe Conventions in the field of criminal justice have been worked out with all these partners.
It should be noted that Kazakhstan will continue to work actively to establish international cooperation with foreign colleagues.
