Standing Committee on Law reviews 2019 fall session
On January 4, the Standing Committee on Law, headed by MP Kh.Nyambaatar, held a press conference to report on the laws and regulations it reviewed during the entirety of 2019 fall session. The standing committee convened 18 times, discussed and decided on 38 separate topics. It reviewed amendments to 70 laws, 14 parliamentary decrees, prepared and submitted 18 recommendations, six presentations and voted to resolve 195 items with Parliament approval.
Through the standing committee’s decisions, six taskforces to amend existing laws were established and convened a total of 66 times, reports Kh.Nyambaatar. He notes that standing committee is responsible for many significant changes to existing laws, such as the Law on Legal Counsel. He describes these changes as redefining the description of lawyers and legal counsels, and better defined their rights and boundaries.
“Mongolia established its first legal counsel organization in 1924, but since 2013 there were no laws that specifically deal with lawyers, and as of 2019, this is no longer the case.”
He then briefly mentioned the newly introduced Law on Intellectual Property, which had been submitted by nine Parliament members led by N.Uchral. Its stated aim is to improve the value of intellectual properties, and allow them to be introduced in practice, through mass-production facilities and factories.
He then moved on to human rights. He states that in the past 28 years, there were ethical requirements to update Mongolia’s legal documents that protect human rights, as evidenced with recent examples of violent interrogation methods and torture. Therefore, Parliament resolved to amend Mongolia’s Law on Human Rights Commission last fall. Regulations that accommodate this law will be passed in the coming weeks, during the spring session, and the five members specified in the law will be nominated and appointed during the same period as well.
The head of the standing committee continued his presentation with amendments made to the Criminal Code – and most importantly, the reopening of closed cases due to statute of limitations. The amendments also made sure this did not happen again for corruption crimes like graft and bribery. He notes these changes were proposed by the standing committee itself. The Criminal Code also clarified certain elements pertaining to consumption of illegal drugs.
Another set of amendments to the Criminal Code were made by MP Kh.Bolorchuluun and 23 other MPs, concerning livestock theft. In general, the criminal punishment for stealing herd animals has been tightened, and imprisonment is made mandatory for those with repeat offenses and those who had stolen exceedingly high number of herd animals, all of which are specified in the law. This amendment comes after increased theft of such animals in rural regions, and lawmakers explain this increase was due to “weak” criminal punishment methods that got introduced in the law’s previous iteration. With the new changes, a thief may be imprisoned for up 12 years for stealing herd animals.
He states that due to substantial changes to the Criminal Code during the fall session, many other laws and regulations had to go through minor or extensive changes to accommodate the revised Criminal Code. These laws and regulations mostly cover court decisions, criminal investigation, the Law on Infringements, and they also aim to solve problems that naturally arise when attempting to implement the Criminal Code in practice.
Next, the standing committee explained that the recent changes made to the Law on Combating Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing aims to remove Mongolia from the grey list of the Financial Action Taskforce (FATF). In addition to this, Parliament has approved changes to the Law on the Financial Regulatory Commission and accompanying changes to the Criminal Code, further taking steps to allow Mongolia back into the good graces of the international financial community.
Concluding the press conference, he briefly touched on changes made to laws and regulations covering illegal drugs and family.
...The standing committee convened 18 times, discussed and decided on 38 separate topics. It reviewed amendments to 70 laws, 14 parliamentary decrees, prepared and submitted 18 recommendations, six presentations and voted to resolve 195 items with Parliament approval...