WHICH CRIMES CAN A 14-YEAR-OLD BE TRIED FOR? THE LIST IN ARTICLE 15 OF KAZAKHSTAN'S CRIMINAL CODE COMPARED WITH 30 OTHER JURISDICTIONS

Abstract

In Kazakhstan criminal responsibility starts at the age of 16, but Article 15 of the Criminal Code lists 31 offences for which a child can be tried from the age of 14. International comparisons usually look only at the minimum age itself, and much less attention is paid to what such lists contain. In this study I compared the Kazakhstan list with the rules of 30 other jurisdictions in Europe and Asia. I read each rule in the current text of the national criminal code, put every listed offence into one of five groups, and traced how the Kazakhstan list changed after the 1997 Code. Eleven of the 31 jurisdictions use a list of offences for younger children, nineteen have one minimum age without exceptions, and Sweden, since September 2026, uses a penalty threshold instead of a list. Among the eleven lists, Kazakhstan's is the second longest (31 offences, median 20) and has the second lowest share of offences against the person (19.4%, median 28.6%), in both cases after Russia. It is also the only list that includes offences of public expression, namely incitement of discord and propaganda of terrorism. When the 1997 list (21 offences) was replaced by the 2014 list (30 offences), all nine new offences were crimes against the state or terrorism offences, while the number of offences against the person stayed at six. Unlike China and Ireland, where a prosecutor must approve the case, and Poland, where a court decides in each case, Kazakhstan applies its list automatically. These results suggest that the list grew mainly together with the offences against the state and terrorism in the Code, and I found no sign that knowledge about how children develop played a role in it.

Keywords: minimum age of criminal responsibility, juvenile justice, Criminal Code of Kazakhstan, comparative law, adolescent development, children's rights

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Как цитировать

Ibraimkhan A. WHICH CRIMES CAN A 14-YEAR-OLD BE TRIED FOR? THE LIST IN ARTICLE 15 OF KAZAKHSTAN'S CRIMINAL CODE COMPARED WITH 30 OTHER JURISDICTIONS // Central Asian Scientific Journal. – 2026. – No. 4(32), Vol. 1. – Pp. 80–90.