Kyrgyzstan Parliament Committee Approves Bill to Reduce Bureaucracy in Public Services

The Committee on Constitutional Law, State Structure, Local Self-Government, and Regulations of the Jogorku Kenesh (Kyrgyz Parliament) has given its initial approval to a draft law designed to streamline and debureaucratize public services. The bill, considered in its first reading, aims to modernize the system of state and municipal services by embracing digital transformation.

According to Deputy Minister of Justice Aybek Aidarov, the current law on state and municipal services is outdated and does not align with modern digitalization principles. The proposed legislation champions the digital form of service delivery as the priority. It stipulates that government bodies will be prohibited from demanding documents and information that can be accessed through digital interagency systems, thereby eliminating the need for citizens to repeatedly submit the same data.

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The current Law 'On State and Municipal Services' is already outdated and does not take into account modern principles of digitalization. The bill proposes to establish the priority of the digital form of service provision. At the same time, state bodies will not be able to demand documents and information from citizens that can be obtained through the system of digital interaction.

Recognizing that not all citizens have access to digital technologies, the bill ensures that alternative methods for obtaining services will be preserved. A significant innovation is the introduction of proactive service provision. In certain cases, government agencies will be empowered to initiate services automatically for citizens if the necessary information is already available in state information systems. Recipients will be notified and given the option to refuse the service or appeal the outcome.

The draft law also proposes the creation of a unified registry of services, a centralized list of all state, municipal, and certain paid services, to be maintained by an authorized state body. Local governments will have the flexibility to add services specific to their regions and communities. Furthermore, the bill seeks to clearly distinguish between state, municipal, and civil law services by establishing specific criteria for their classification. It also allows for the outsourcing of certain service delivery processes to legal entities and individual entrepreneurs, while maintaining the responsibility for quality and timeliness with the state or local government body.

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For citizens who do not have access to digital technologies, alternative ways of receiving services should be preserved. One of the innovations will be the introduction of proactive service provision. It is proposed that in certain cases, state bodies will initiate the provision of a service without the citizen's request, if the relevant information is already available in state information systems. The recipient will be notified of the service provision and will be able to refuse it or appeal the result.