The COVID-19 pandemic did not prevent the Association of Asian Constitutional Courts and Equivalent Institutions (AACC) from holding a series of routine events for the association’s development. For two days on Thursday and Friday, August 26-27, 2021, the AACC carried out an internal symposium, Meeting of Secretaries-General (MSG), and Board of Members Meeting (BoMM) virtually in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan.

The meeting was attended by the secretaries-general of the constitutional review bodies of Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Mongolia, Russia, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, and Uzbekistan.

The event was moderated by the Secretary-General of the Constitutional Council Bakyt Nurmukhanov.

Three permanent secretariats of the AACC delivered a report for the period of September 2020 to August 2021.

Secretary-General of the MKRI M. Guntur Hamzah delivered his report of the AACC’s Secretariat for Planning and Coordination (SPC), which included the communication platform for the AACC liaison officers (LOs) in the form of a WhatsApp group and the Internal Menu feature on the AACC’s website, the admission of new member into the AACC, the inventory of the AACC members’ activities, the publication and dissemination of information of the secretariat’s progress report, updates on the AACC’s website, and intensive communication with members and prospective members. He also conveyed the SPC’s plans for the following period, including the induction of prospective members, the issuance of the SPC newsletter Volume II, and the development of the AACC’s website.

Next, the Secretary-General of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Korea Park Jong Mun delivered his report of the Secretariat for Research and Development (SRD), regarding the SRD’s annual conference, the secondment program at the SRD that targets the research staff of the AACC members, and the development of an online forum into a platform for knowledge sharing between the AACC members and the SRD. The SRD also reported that they had been generating output such as annual book projects, research papers, and other materials.

The SRD’s report was followed up by the report of the Center for Training and Human Resources Development (CTHRD) by the Secretary-General of the Constitutional Court of Turkey Murat Sen. He provided updates on the CTHRD’s summer school program, which had been carried out eight times. He also talked about the center’s plan to hold the ninth summer school program virtually on September 7-8, 2021 on account of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The participants of the meeting noted that constructive interaction on a permanent basis of the structural units of the members of the Association would make a significant contribution to its development, especially during the global COVID-19 pandemic.

The delegates discussed the draft documents planned for adoption at the Board of Members Meeting, the admission of the the Constitutional Court of Jordan into the Association, and the transfer of presidency to the Constitutional Court of Mongolia. The permanent secretariats of the Association--based in Indonesia, Korea, and Turkey--informed the participants about their progress in the period.