According to Article 18 of the ATIL, an unlawful restriction of the right to access to information may be appealed to a higher state body or to a court. In Kazakh law, complaints against the actions or inaction of officials, as well as decisions of state bodies, are submitted to a higher-ranking official or body or to the court no later than three months after the citizen became aware of the commission of an action or decision by the relevant official or body. If the appeal period expires, this does not constitute grounds for a state body or official or court to refuse to hear a complaint. The reasons for missing the deadline are clarified when the complaint is examined on the merits and can be one of the grounds for refusing to satisfy the complaint.
In accordance with Article 456-1 of the Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Administrative Offenses, administrative liability is foreseen for an illegal restriction of the right to access to information.
The unlawful refusal to provide information or the provision of knowingly false information in cases where such information is subject to provision at the request of the user of information in accordance with the legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan, with the exception of actions for which liability is provided for by other articles of this code, shall be sanctioned by fines.
Knowingly publishing false information in the mass media, on the Internet resource of the information owner, on the Internet portal of open data or in other ways provided by the legislation, likewise entails fines that are categorized into groups.
The illegal attribution of limited access to information, except for actions provided for by part three of Article 504 of this code, entails a penalty for officials in the amount of twenty units;
The acts provided for by parts 1 and 2 of this article, committed repeatedly within a year after the imposition of an administrative penalty, entail a fine.
Without a thorough evaluation, the system of judicial review of violations of the right of access to information may appear satisfactory, because it is exercised by an institution independent of the administration, in accordance with the judicial procedure that is designed to guarantee the rights of individuals.
However, it is worth recalling the reasons that led the OECD countries to introduce an alternative method in this domain to recourse to the courts: the simplicity, speed, and economy of the review by an institution dedicated specifically to this function, which must also be independent of the administration which has refused access to information.
