Kyrgyzstan cancels matronymic plans in blow to gender equality  

Kyrgyzstan’s Constitutional Court has cancelled its own ruling allowing citizens to use their matronymic instead of patronymic in their official identity documents.  

The decision that gave the Kyrgyz the right to use their mother’s name in their ID papers had been taken in June. 

On Thursday, the Court announced a new ruling saying that the earlier decision had been met by the public “on the whole, as a negative move that encroaches on Kyrgyz people’s moral values and traditions”. 

It said that the “extremely negative” reaction was threatening to undermine public confidence in the Constitutional Court, and therefore it was cancelling its recommendation to the government to introduce legal changes allowing use of matronymic instead of patronymic. 

The Court’s move follows the adoption of the amendments to the law on the Constitutional Court that make its decisions reversible. Previously its rulings were deemed final and non-reviewable.  

Under the changes, signed into law by President Sadyr Japarov in October, the Constitutional Court’s decisions can now be reviewed or cancelled at the request of its own chairman or president.  

The changes to the law on the Constitutional Court have been criticised as a move away from the supremacy of law towards authoritarianism.  

The decision to introduce the use of the matronymic has been strongly criticised by the powerful security chief Kamchybek Tashiyev, who openly called for it to be abolished. 

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