Comment to Article 4. The effect of civil legislation in time of the Civil Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan  

The practical significance of the rule on the effect of civil legislation in time is reduced to several fundamental provisions:

a) if the legal acts giving rise to, modifying or terminating civil rights and obligations are defined differently by the new law than they were before the legal relationship arose, then the legality of such a legal relationship is assessed according to the legislation in force on the day of its occurrence.;  

b) a change in legislation does not automatically entail a change in civil relations, and they remain the same as they were at the time of their legal origin.;  

c) if the law prohibits the commission of any actions that were not previously prohibited, then such actions must be terminated.  

These provisions serve as the content of the principle "the law has no retroactive effect".  

However, there may be exceptions to this principle, which are established by law (but not by agreement of the parties).:

a) making the law retroactive and extending it to relations that arose before its adoption. For example, paragraph 4 of the Resolution of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Kazakhstan dated December 27, 1994 "On the Enactment of the Civil Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan (General Part)" stipulates that the organizational and legal forms of commercial legal entities that arose before the introduction of the Civil Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan must be transformed into the forms provided for by the Civil Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan by January 1, 1998.;  

b) sometimes a legislative act establishes that changes in civil legislation do not apply to certain types of legal relations if such changes worsen the situation of the legal entity. Such a provision is contained, for example, in Article 6 of the Law on Foreign Investments.;  

c) the establishment of a rule by virtue of which the relations that arose before the adoption of the new law remain, but their content changes. For example, changes in the amount of rent, utility bills, etc.  

Often, new legislation gives retroactive effect to terms that are legally significant, for example, the statute of limitations. On the contrary, according to paragraph 5 of the Resolution of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Kazakhstan "On the Enactment of the Civil Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan (General Part)", the limitation periods provided for by the Civil Code apply to disputes based on circumstances that arose after the enactment of the Civil Code.

Comments on The Civil Code The Code of Criminal Procedure The Criminal Code The Normative resolution of the Supreme Court The criminal legislation The normative legal acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan  

The commentary was prepared within the framework of the scientific and practical research program of the Scientific Research Center of Private Law of the Kazakh State Law University.  

Head of the working group on the preparation of the draft Civil Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Professor Suleimenov M.K.

Deputy head Professor Basin Yu.G. 

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