Kazakhstan has written off unpaid administrative fines for more than 680,000 people under the country’s first administrative amnesty, Prosecutor General Berik Asylov said.
The amnesty was applied to 681,700 people in 1.3 million administrative cases in less than a month, according to Asylov. The canceled fines were worth 22.8 billion tenge, or approximately $48 million. Asylov published the figures in a post on X.
The measure formed part of an amnesty signed on July 1, the day Kazakhstan’s new Constitution took effect. It extended an amnesty to selected administrative offenses for the first time, alongside provisions covering criminal cases.
It covered unpaid fines imposed on Kazakh citizens, individual entrepreneurs, private notaries, private bailiffs, lawyers, and legal consultants.
Fines imposed by courts were excluded, along with offenses considered too serious for clemency. According to Asylov, the amnesty nevertheless applied to violations under more than 380 articles of Kazakhstan’s Code of Administrative Offenses.
The Times of Central Asia previously reported that the government announced plans for Kazakhstan’s first administrative amnesty after voters approved the new Constitution in a March referendum. The authorities said at the time that it would cover offenses that did not threaten public or national security.
Recipients were not required to file applications or submit documents. Kazakhstan’s unified register of administrative proceedings identified eligible cases using the criteria set out in the law, allowing the authorities to issue decisions digitally.
Asylov said people were informed by text message when their fines were canceled. Related enforcement proceedings were closed and restrictions were lifted. In at least one case cited by prosecutors, an impounded vehicle was returned to its owner.
The broader amnesty law has also prompted questions about whether repeated acts of clemency are being used to correct penalties that were too severe in the first place.
Lawyers and rights advocates interviewed by BES.media said the measure would ease the burden on convicted and fined individuals, while some argued that frequent amnesties may point to deeper problems in legislation and judicial practice.
Lawyer Dzhokhar Utebekov told the outlet that amnesties effectively soften the impact of strict criminal laws and sentencing practices. Rights advocate Yevgeny Zhovtis criticized the importance placed on repayment of damages, which can shift financial pressure onto prisoners’ families, and the exclusion of some offenses that rights groups regard as politically sensitive.
Former lawmaker Abzal Kuspan disputed that interpretation, telling BES.media that an amnesty is a separate act of state clemency and does not in itself indicate shortcomings in the courts.
Those concerns relate mainly to the criminal provisions of the law. The administrative amnesty followed a more straightforward process, with eligible unpaid fines canceled according to predetermined criteria rather than through a new examination of each case.
The criminal amnesty could affect about 16,500 people. Around 4,500 could be released or avoid punishment, including approximately 1,500 people held in prisons or other detention facilities, while more than 10,000 could have their sentences reduced.
