Main Sources of Legal Norms in the Field of Physical Education and Sports of the Republic of Kazakhstan

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to identify and systematically analyse the key normative legal acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan governing legal relations in the field of physical education and sports, as well as to compare them with foreign legislation. The study employs comparative-legal, formal-legal and systematic research methods in combination with bibliometric analysis of the Scopus, Google Scholar, and National Scientific Portal of the Republic of Kazakhstan databases; the legislation of Brazil, France, Greece, Italy, Japan and the United States was examined with direct reference to national legal databases. The following results were obtained: four constitutional provisions of the Republic of Kazakhstan were identified as the indirect legal basis for sports legal relations; a conflict was demonstrated between labour and sectoral legislation, whereby bonus schemes are treated as a discretionary right of the employer, while mandatory financial incentives for members of national teams are simultaneously prescribed; and the absence of codification of sports legislation in Kazakhstan is confirmed. The findings contribute to the scholarly debate between the lex sportiva concept and the inter-branch approach. It is concluded that sports law in Kazakhstan constitutes a state-conditioned inter-branch legal institution; a classification of its sources by subject-matter areas is proposed.