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Meruert Makhmutova
members of the soviets were elected by the citizens. The law established a principle of supremacy of representative bodies. In doing so, it established local executive bodies, and the chair of a local soviet was simultaneously assigned to chair an executive committee. In parallel, the law recognized the soviets as local self-government bodies. Thus, there was no distinction between local state government and local self-government.
Local Government Structure in the New Republic On January 13, 1992, a law amending the Law on Local Self-Government and Local Soviets in the Kazakh SSR was passed. This law, which applied during the transition period, substituted the principle of supremacy of representative bodies for the principle of differentiation between the functions and powers of representative and executive bodies. On the same day, the Supreme Soviet adopted the Law on Suspension of the Validity of Certain Kazakh SSR Constitution Standards, which was also to apply during the transition period. That law introduced a new institution: a head of local administration, who was accountable to the president or the head of oblast (regional) administration and who was not controllable by the local soviet. The local soviets (of any level) no longer had the right to review issues related to the competence of heads of administration, and heads of local administration were no longer entitled to review issues on the competence of the respective local soviets. On February 7, 1992, the president of Kazakhstan signed the Decree on Improving the Organization and Activities of Public Administration Bodies under the Conditions of Economic Reform. This decree established for the first time a uniform structure of executive administration, from the president to the heads of local administration, and stipulated the responsibilities of the Cabinet of Ministers in the strategic supervision of all executive power. Thus, a vertical structure of executive power was created. The first constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan as an independent state, which was adopted on January 28, 1993, by the Supreme Soviet, preserved local representative bodies and even declared their right to make independent decisions within their competence. This structure of local government was identified by the Law on Local Representative and Executive Bodies, which the Supreme Soviet adopted on December 10, 1993, immediately before dissolving itself. This law designated completely new approaches, among which the following have become most important: First, representative assemblies (maslikhats) no longer constitute local executive bodies. Second, a head of local administration represents
