Ensuring Justice and the Rule of Law in Uzbekistan: In the context of Judicial and Legal Reforms

Judicial and legal reforms in Uzbekistan: achieved results

It should be particularly noted that in the history of independent Uzbekistan, a new procedure for the appointment or election of a judge was introduced for the first time, providing for an initial five-year term, another ten-year term and a subsequent indefinite period of tenure, as well as a maximum limit on the age of tenure of a judge. Prior to the reforms in the Republic of Uzbekistan, judges were appointed or elected only for a five-year term, which naturally had a negative impact on the activities of judges and did not correspond to world practice.

Among the important novelties, it is necessary to note the unification of the Supreme Court and the Supreme Economic Court into a single body – the Supreme Court of the Republic of Uzbekistan. The creation of this body is aimed at ensuring uniform consideration of cases, coordination of the work of the courts as a whole. Of great importance for ensuring the principle of independence of the judiciary, was the transfer from the executive authorities of the powers of material, technical and financial support of the courts to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Uzbekistan. Thus, the functions and powers of the judicial authorities in the field of material, technical and financial support for the activities of courts of general jurisdiction have been transferred to the Supreme Court of the Republic of Uzbekistan, with the creation of the Department for Ensuring the Activities of Courts under the Supreme Court of the Republic of Uzbekistan. Since January 1, 2021, the “one court – one instance” system has been introduced, as a result of which the courts of general jurisdiction of the Republic of Karakalpakstan, regions and the city of Tashkent have been formed, the institute of judicial review in the order of supervision has been abolished.

At present, the national information system of electronic court proceedings E-SUD has been introduced, which makes it possible to speed up and improve the efficiency of legal proceedings. The implemented videoconferencing system for participation in court sessions has yielded economic results. Only in 2017-2020, more than 200 courtrooms were fully provided with this system, as a result of which 17.7 billion soums were saved. In 2023, a system was introduced for accepting applications regardless of jurisdiction and transferring cases to a competent court, ensuring the resolution of all legal consequences within a certain case in order to widely implement the “single window” principle in the court system.

Reforms in the field of administrative proceedings.

Until 2017, there was no separate judicial body in the Republic of Uzbekistan considering disputes of a public legal nature. This caused significant problems in judicial practice. In order to resolve these problems, administrative courts were established in the Republic of Uzbekistan in 2017, which are subordinate to the consideration of administrative disputes arising from public law relations. The establishment of administrative courts has a positive impact on the effective resolution of disputes between State bodies and citizens. Thus, from 2019 to the first quarter of 2023, 65487 public disputes were considered by administrative courts, in 38413 of them (i. e. 58.6% of cases) the applicants’ claims were satisfied. Only in the first quarter of this year, in 1184 cases, decisions of administrative bodies, including 359 decisions of local authorities were declared invalid.

Reform of the criminal law sphere.

The punishment in the form of arrest was abolished, the terms of detention of persons were reduced from 72 to 48 hours, the deadlines for the application of preventive measures in the form of detention and house arrest, as well as preliminary investigation – from 12 to 7 months. Today, the use of a preventive measure in the form of detention or house arrest, the suspension of a passport, the removal of the accused from office, the placement of a person in a medical institution, the exhumation of a corpse, the arrest of postal and telegraph items is carried out with the sanction of a court. Evidence of this is information about acquittals. So, from 2017 to the first quarter of 2023, 4874 persons were acquitted.

In recent years, at the initiative of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, in order to provide an opportunity to return to society and family to persons who have violated the law, but realized the illegality of their acts and showed a firm determination to embark on the path of correction, for the first time in the history of Uzbekistan, the practice of pardoning convicts instead of the previously existing amnesty institution has been actively applied. So, since 2016, about 6500 convicts have been pardoned. As part of the implementation of the Concept of Improving the Criminal and Criminal Procedure Legislation of the Republic of Uzbekistan, the procedure for electronic criminal proceedings ("Electronic Criminal Case") is being gradually introduced in Uzbekistan, providing for the introduction of a secure system that allows conducting criminal proceedings in electronic form.

Reforming the institute of advocacy.

Guarantees of ensuring justice and the rule of law in the framework of constitutional reforms

Based on the principle of "person-society-state", a number of important guarantees aimed at ensuring justice and the rule of law in the judicial and legal sphere were secured:

Continuation of the course on ensuring justice and legality in the judicial and legal sphere

Second, increasing the level of use of modern information and communication technologies. It is necessary to continue work on:

ensuring a gradual transition to an "electronic court case" system that combines all stages of legal proceedings and investigations;

full transition to audio-video recording of court sessions and electronic shorthand;

to establish a system for broadcasting court sessions on certain categories of cases in the media and on the Internet.

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