Law and Policy Reform

	Table of Contents
p. 29 of 84 BACK | NEXT Introduction General Background The Legislative Framework The Legislative Process Government and the Administration The Judicial System The Court System The General Council of Courts Court Procedure The Judges The Bailiffs Working Conditions of the Judiciary Arbitration Recommendations The Legal Profession Legal Education Appendices

Developing Mongolia's Legal Framework: A Needs Analysis : The Judicial System

---

The Court System

Ordinary Courts

Mongolia has three levels of ordinary court:

• Soum, intersoum and district courts¹⁹ have jurisdiction only at first instance and deal with misdemeanours and less serious crimes and civil disputes where the amount in dispute is less than Tug 10 million ($22,000).

• Aimag courts, found in the aimag capitals, and the Capital City Court in Ulaanbaatar have first instance jurisdiction in cases of more serious crime and in civil matters where the amount in dispute is over Tug 10 million. They also deal with appeals from the lower level courts. The judges of these courts sit in both first instance and appeal cases. Due to the relative number of cases, criminal appeals are the primary focus of this work. In 194 these judges rendered 1,224 civil and 1,646 criminal appeal judgments.

• At the highest level is the Supreme Court in Ulaanbaatar which deals with any matters at first instance that are not specifically within the jurisdiction of the other courts and appeals from decisions of the aimag courts and the Capital City Court. In 1994 it dealt with 114 civil and 343 criminal cases.

Constitutional Court (Tsets)

Mongolia has followed the example of some other civil law countries and has established a constitutional court known as the Tsets. ²⁰ This court examines and settles constitutional disputes at the request of the Ikh Khural, the President, the Prime Minister, the Supreme Court, the General Prosecutor, on its own initiative, or on the basis of petitions received from citizens. Most of its work involves the latter and it receives around 150 petitions and requests a year. However, a substantial number of these do not fall within its jurisdicti on and are transferred to the ordinary courts or other institutions. Most of the petitions that are considered concern human rights violations by state officials. For example, a recent case concerned the issue of whether the General Prosecutor breached the Constitution in the procedure adopted to investigate a complaint against a police officer.

The nine judges of the Tsets panel are appointed by the Ikh Khural for a term of six years. Members must be at least forty years old and experienced in politics and law. At present, eight are lawyers and one is a geologist. Four are full-time and five are part-time members.

Hearings are conducted before a panel of five. Decisions on the conformity of laws, decrees or international treaties with the Constitution must be submitted to the Ikh Khural for approval. If the approval is refused, the Tsets will reconsider with a full panel. The decision is then final and binding.

Judgments of the Constitutional Court are published in the government gazette and the government newspaper.

Some members of the legal community doubt the usefulness of having a separate court for constitutional matters and consider that its work would be better dealt with by the Supreme Court.

____________________

¹⁹ Administratively, Mongolia is divided into 18 aimags or provinces and 3 autonomous municipalities (Ulaanbaatar, Darhan, and Erdenet). The aimags are in turn divided into soums and bags. The autonomous municipalities are divided into districts and horoos. Larger soums have thier own court of first instance, otherwise two or more soums share an intersoum court.

²⁰ Constitution, Article 64. Tsets means wisdom in Mongolia.

Back The Judicial System	Next The General Council of Courts