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C O N F I D E N T I A L ULAANBAATAR 000240 
 
 
STATE FOR EAP/CM 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/19/2034 
TAGS: PGOV PREL MG
SUBJECT: MP TEMUUJIN DISCUSSES LEGAL REFORM IN MONGOLIA 
 
Classified By: Political Chief Andrew K. Covington, Reasons 1.4 (b) 
and (d) 
 
 
¶1. (C) Summary: Poloff met with Democratic Party (DP) MP 
Temuujin on August 14 to discuss the recent amnesty law and 
legal reform efforts in Mongolia.  Temuujin was frank in his 
assessment of the legal reform environment, noting that 
reform efforts originating in Parliament rarely get out of 
committee and criticizing President Elbegdorj's choice of 
legal advisor.  Temuujin, 38, is a lawyer and was a leading 
legal scholar at the National University of Mongolia prior to 
entering politics.  He was elected to Parliament from the 
Bayangol District of Ulaanbaatar in June 2008.  End Summary. 
 
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TEMUUJIN ON LEGAL REFORM EFFORTS IN MONGOLIA 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶2. (C) Temuujin was eager to discuss legal reform in Mongolia 
with poloff.  The motivated and soft-spoken MP offered 
critiques and expressed candid frustrations with the present 
state of affairs, while also suggesting remedies.  With his 
audience in mind, Temuujin noted that many judges receive 
training through USAID, JICA, and other international 
partners and donor organizations and return to Mongolia with 
fresh ideas.  However, Temuujin said the outdated Mongolian 
legal system limits the degree to which participants in such 
exchanges are able to leverage and implement what they have 
learned.  He specified that much of the structure of the 
legal system has not evolved since the socialist era, meaning 
the system lacks the flexibility to absorb and pass on new 
ideas.  Temuujin strongly believes the Mongolian legal system 
is still not sufficiently reformed and would therefore 
benefit more from trainer-training programs than from 
end-user training programs, so that ideas can more freely 
enter the system rather than be trapped with end-users unable 
to apply them. 
 
¶3. (C) Temuujin has initiated several draft laws on judicial 
reform, in particular to make the judiciary more independent 
from both Parliament and the GOM, as well as to limit 
opportunities for corruption of judges.  However, none of 
these drafts has gotten out of committee, leading Temuujin to 
believe that the better approach is to work with the Ministry 
of Justice and Home Affairs on reform of the system. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Temuujin stated the legal system has to be more 
"horizontal," meaning there must be a true system of appeals, 
as opposed to the current "vertical" orientation, in which 
there is more of a "chain of command" from higher to lower 
courts. 
 
¶5. (SBU) The MP comes from an academic background and is 
critical of the tendency, in his opinion, of foreign 
assistance programs to seek participants for exchange and 
training programs from within government bureaucracy (where 
he believes the knowledge is pigeonholed), as opposed to 
participants from academia that have a natural venue in which 
to impart what they have learned to the next generation of 
legal professionals.  He noted there is often no venue for 
those returning from exchange programs to share what they 
have learned with their colleagues.  Moreover, he is 
concerned that certain colleagues (but not necessarily the 
majority) have a tendency to hoard knowledge as a leg up on 
competition within their organization. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Temuujin noted the names of two Mongolian think tank 
NGOs involved in legal reform that he recommended as active 
and forward-leaning: the Open Academy and the "Libertar" 
Foundation.  He said the two NGOs' board members are mostly 
younger teachers at several law schools in Ulaanbaatar, as 
opposed to the boards of other legal NGOs that often consist 
of established legal professionals with careers rooted firmly 
in the socialist era -- and therefore not inclined to push 
change. 
 
------------------ 
ON THE AMNESTY LAW 
------------------ 
 
¶7. (C) Regarding the July 1 unrest following the 2008 
parliamentary elections, Temuujin believes many of those 
arrested were innocent bystanders in the wrong place at the 
wrong time and should have been released well before 
Parliament passed President Elbegdorj's amnesty law earlier 
this month.  On the other hand, he also believes many 
government officials who misused their positions were 
incorrectly freed in the same stroke.  (Note: In a subsequent 
conversation with the Independent Authority Against 
Corruption (IAAC), poloff confirmed that certain cases under 
IAAC investigation have been dismissed in accordance with the 
amnesty law, primarily because of the provision in the law 
that allowed certain first-time non-violent offenders to be 
pardoned.  End Note.) 
 
---------------------------- 
ON ELBEGDORJ'S LEGAL ADVISOR 
---------------------------- 
 
¶8. (C) Temuujin has publicly commended Elbegdorj for taking a 
big political risk in proposing to reform the judiciary, but 
Temuujin was nonetheless frank during his conversation with 
poloff in expressing disappointment with Elbegdorj's 
selection of G. Ganzorig as Legal Advisor to the President. 
Ganzorig is a former Supreme Court Justice who left Mongolia 
in 1993 and subsequently spent 15 years in the United States 
pursuing a legal career.  Ganzorig returned to Mongolia in 
July 2009 to fill this position at Elbegdorj's request. 
Temuujin believes Ganzorig will not prioritize legal reform 
efforts, despite what Temuujin sees as the Mongolian public's 
demand for deep-rooted reforms.  Temuujin believes turnover 
of 70 to 80 percent of the Supreme Court Justices would be a 
good starting point for establishing an independent judiciary 
and for reducing corruption in general. 
 
¶9. (C) As noted in para 3, Temuujin believes Parliament does 
not have the will to engage in legal reform at present and 
that the appointment of Ganzorig closes a channel for reform 
that could have been pursued through the office of the 
President of Mongolia.  Specifically, Temuujin believes 
Ganzorig's interest lies more in helping his old boss, former 
Supreme Court Chief Justice Ganbat, get his old job back. 
Temuujin stated that replacing current Supreme Court Chief 
Justice Batdelger with Ganbat will mean swapping one 
non-reformer for another and would be part of a wider program 
to shift power from Batdelger and his supporters to the 
Ganbat faction within the Court.  Note that both Batdelger 
and Ganbat are from the Mongolian People's Revolutionary 
Party (MPRP), and that Ganzorig has no party affiliation. 
Therefore, Ganzorig's interest in replacing Batdelger with 
Ganbat is more a matter of personal loyalty.  Ganbat was 
instrumental in getting Ganzorig onto the Supreme Court and 
in facilitating Ganzorig's opportunities in the United 
States. 
 
------------------------- 
ON JOURNALISTS AND REFORM 
------------------------- 
 
¶10. (SBU) Temuujin stated that programs such as exchanges 
through the House Democracy Assistance Commission (HDAC), the 
Fulbright, and similar are very important, but that training 
for journalists who deal with legislative affairs (with a 
focus on ethics and professionalism) to be of equal 
importance and underrepresented in the exchange programs that 
the United Stated and other countries provide. 
 
 
MINTON