Kazakhstani man sues the government over the time change

Tengrinews.kz – A resident of Ust-Kamenogorsk, Serikzhan Akhmetzhanov, has filed a lawsuit in the civil court of Astana against the government of Kazakhstan, demanding that the decision to change the time zone be declared illegal and revoked.
It turns out that Akhmetzhanov is a lawyer and has lived in Ust-Kamenogorsk since birth. According to him, the main reason for filing the lawsuit is that his children return home from school in complete darkness, practically at night.

"My children attend school in the second shift. They go to school at 1:00–2:00 PM, and classes usually end at 7:30 PM. By the time they gather their things and leave, it's almost 8:00 PM. In Ust-Kamenogorsk, the actual time is two hours ahead. So when the clock says 8:00 PM, it's actually 10:00 PM. They come home at night, and then they still need to have dinner and do their homework," he explained to a Tengrinews.kz correspondent.

Now, Akhmetzhanov has to personally pick up his children from school because he really fears for their safety.

"I have to go and pick them up myself because it's already essentially nighttime. There’s no lighting near our school. Anyone could commit any criminal act against a child, and the child wouldn’t even see the person’s face or clothing. There are also many cars and potholes on the roads," he shared.

Akhmetzhanov noted that the change in time zone caused inconveniences, and the clock time no longer corresponds to the actual time. He filed a lawsuit demanding the repeal of the 2000 government decree, arguing that it lacks a reference to any law granting such authority.

"The Law on Legal Acts stipulates that legislative acts, under which subordinate acts are adopted, must be explicitly referenced. However, this is absent in the decree, which constitutes a violation of the law," he stated.

In Akhmetzhanov's view, the decree was adopted without proper legal grounds.

"The law should clearly state that the procedure for calculating time is determined by the government, but no such law exists. The decree refers to administrative-territorial organization, but the corresponding authority is not present in the law and the Constitution. It is stated there that only Parliament, through the adoption of laws, or the President can act on behalf of the people. However, there was no presidential decree or relevant laws," the lawyer explained.

Moreover, according to the man, the decree was adopted without considering the opinion of the population. As an example, he cited the petition "Turn back the time," which gathered the required 50,000 signatures by early summer.

"This is a significant percentage of the region's population, which is under a million. I haven’t met a single person who agreed with this time change. When I asked people about it, everyone said they absolutely disliked it, found it inconvenient, and uncomfortable," said the resident of East Kazakhstan.

Additionally, he claims that the decree is not based on any real scientific research or expert opinions.

"When drafting laws, expert evaluations are usually conducted, but in this case, there was no substantiated basis. Living by the Sun is a biological norm. If even ants and bees live according to nature, why are we being forced to follow artificial time? The government cannot override the laws of nature, and research should not contradict them," he concluded.

According to the lawyer, the court has initiated a civil case and involved the Ministry of Trade and Integration, along with its Technical Regulation and Metrology Committee.
The press service of the Astana court confirmed to a Tengrinews.kz correspondent that such a case has indeed been filed in the civil court, but a hearing has not yet been scheduled.
As a reminder: on the night of February 29 to March 1, Kazakhstan switched to a single time zone. Three months later, on June 7, a petition to cancel the time change gathered the required 50,000 signatures.
In August, the Ministry of Trade and Integration announced the final decision regarding the time zone petition. At that time, Minister Arman Shakkaliyev stated that based on substantiated scientific international studies on the positive effects of standard time zones and the absence of evidence of negative health impacts, a decision was made to deny the petition.
Previously, we reported that Kazakhstani citizens “attacked” the Facebook of the initiator of the time zone change.