Implementation of Open Legal Acts portal in Kazakhstan: neither failure nor success

Abstract

In 2015, the government of Kazakhstan set a bold goal of becoming a transparent and accountable government. To achieve that goal, Open Government portal was launched with five components that cover various aspects of government’s work: budgetary, rulemaking, direct interaction with citizens, assessment of government effectiveness and public data generation. This Policy Analysis Exercise focuses on the Open Legal Acts portal which is the e-rulemaking platform. The portal aims to promote transparency of the government’s rulemaking process, to provide citizens with opportunities to comment on drafts of legal acts. The authors of this PAE aim to investigate whether transparency on the portal leads to accountability of the government entities. Multiplemethod approach (archival analysis and semi-structured interviews) was used to analyze the data. The findings suggest that although transparency level has increased slightly over the analyzed period, there have not been dramatic changes in terms of level of accountability. The following recommendations were provided to manage this issue: enhancing e rulemaking process, up-grading the architecture of the portal, and increasing citizens’ access and participation....