Azernews.Az

Turkmen parliamentarians and representatives of judiciary and law enforcement agencies of Turkmenistan discussed decriminalization of parts of the criminal justice system at an OSCE-organized seminar that concluded in Ashgabat, the OSCE Ashgabat office reported.

The OSCE Centre in Ashgabat organized the event to raise the participant's awareness about different scenarios for decriminalization reform, taking into account existing international standards and best international experiences in this field.

"The OSCE Centre in Ashgabat welcomes the adoption of a new Code of Turkmenistan on Administrative Wrongdoings and the decriminalization of a number of offences," Head of the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat Ivo Petrov said.

"Since 2007, the Centre has been implementing activities in the area of administering criminal justice, and as Turkmenistan has recently declared its initiatives on humanization and decriminalization of the administration of criminal justice, we believe this seminar will make a substantial contribution to the efforts of the country's government," according to the statement.

The seminar covered topics such as international norms in the area of humanizing criminal law, protecting victims of crime and a comparative legal analysis of the process of criminal law humanization in some countries of Western Europe, the CIS as well as the United States.

A new Code of Administrative Offences has entered into force in Turkmenistan since January 2014. Several criminal offenses are considered as administrative offences.

The matter rests in the offences, related to the beatings, reckless infliction of injuries of medium severity, libel, slander, and a number of others. After innovations were made, legal entities began acting as entities of administrative legal relations on a par with physical persons.