MONGOLIA
A COUNTRY IN THE HEART OF CENTRAL ASIA AND
HANNS-SEIDEL FOUNDATION

15 years have elapsed since the Hanns-Seidel Foundation of the FRG has been engaged in the development cooperation to create democratic and rule of law state in Mongolia of post communist regime, including the improvement of legislations and judicial reform. The Foundation is the pioneer foreign partner institute, cooperating with the Government of Mongolia in judicial sector.

Within the framework of the long standing bilateral cooperation, numbers of meaningful activities have been implemented, including the tangible task of revising criminal legislations on the basis of democratic principles, considering the specific features of Mongolian socio-economic situation and citizens’ way of life. Mongolian Parliament has adopted revised Criminal and Criminal Procedure Laws, developed by Mongolian lawyers in consultation with German lawyers. Today the work to introduce amendments to these laws in line with current development trends is in progress. Mongolian layers face challenge to determine whether the US criminal practice of passing arranged sentence or European criminal specific practice based on the principles of justice will be most suitable for Mongolian condition and also how to distinguish crimes from administrative breach and to find solutions to many other issues. Mongolian side has requested to continue the cooperation further in this direction with the trusted partner Hanns-Seidel Foundation and the German scholars.

It is almost twenty years since Mongolia introduced independent judicial system. One of example of cooperation to improve this system is the establishment of administrative courts. This created an opportunity for citizens to protect their rights by court against violation by the administrative institutions and authority for the first time in Mongolia, in a country which recently get rid of totalitarian regime. German lawyers have cooperated closely by providing advices to Mongolians in the formulation of draft law on the administrative jurisdiction procedure, while conducting training at national level for judges on the implementation of the law. Mongolians consider the creation of administrative courts in Mongolia for the first time and also the continued concrete assistance for the normal functioning of the courts as the most valuable intellectual investment of Germany in the judicial system.

Hanns-Seidel Foundation is implementing micro project at only juvenile delinquent detention house in Mongolia, designed to adjust them to society, to provide basic legal knowledge to prevent offences and also to provide vocational training. The project involves in total 600 juveniles (with double counting) and more than 170 people have obtained certificate in handcraft and some of them are been employed in the area of their obtained specialty.

Both Germany and Mongolia belong to continental legal family and in addition to that there about 30 thousand Mongolian German graduates in Mongolia, a country of 2.7 million population. These are some of the foundations, facilitating the development of most sustainable and successful cooperation.