Openness and fairness are the main drivers of change in New Uzbekistan

Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Photo: Daily News Hungary

The reforms and changes implemented in Uzbekistan in recent years define a new path for the country’s development. In this process, openness and fairness are among the main factors. Ensuring transparency in public administration and society, creating opportunities for free access to information and taking into account the opinions of citizens is evidence of the existence of openness.

Citizens of Uzbekistan, more than anyone else, feel that the political, legal, socio-economic image of society is rapidly changing, new relationships, new opportunities and values are being formed in the life of the people. Especially “human rights and freedoms”, “rule of law”, “openness and transparency”, “freedom of speech”, “freedom of religion and belief”, “public control”, “gender equality”, “inviolability of private property”. It is noteworthy that such fundamental democratic concepts and life skills as” freedom of activity” are now becoming a true reality.

One fact needs to be openly acknowledged: reform processes are expanding over time. The most important thing is that Uzbekistan has passed the most difficult stage, that is, we have clearly defined our path and started a lot of work. Resolutely continuing the path of ongoing reforms and bringing them to their logical conclusion is one of the most pressing issues. This, of course, is not easy, but the New Uzbekistan is capable of it. It is important to note that in the following years, a sufficient political, legal, socio-economic, organizational and institutional framework was created to implement such a huge and complex task.

Access to information, citizen participation, open information, and justice are very important for ensuring openness in Uzbekistan. In the course of implementing judicial reforms, the reform of the judicial system, ensuring the independence of judges and transparency of judicial proceedings are the same concepts. Transparency and openness of courts is the only condition for protecting citizens ‘ rights. Ensuring social justice is one of the most important conditions of the current era, it helps to ensure equal opportunities for all citizens, support the low-income population, and ensure equality and justice in society.

The words of Amir Temur, written on the facade of the Oksaray residence in Shakhrisabz: “Justice is the foundation of the state and the motto of the leaders”, can have a very deep wisdom.

It is clear to everyone that our great ancestors guided the younger generation with the words: “Do not oppress, be honest, and build a fortress of justice for the people.” Our state also proceeded from such simple and urgent demands in reforming the judicial system. In particular, the idea that “a judge should have justice in his mind, truth in his tongue, and purity in his tongue” was put forward and began to be implemented.

In the current period, ensuring the priority of the Constitution and laws, ensuring reliable protection of human rights and freedoms is becoming the main criterion for judicial reforms in the New Uzbekistan. In the activities of courts and investigative bodies, it is planned to increase the possibility of remote execution of individual procedural actions at least twice.

From a political and legal point of view, the state is defined as “an organ that expresses the will of the people”. The state forms the national assembly and its people’s representatives. Therefore, the state and its bodies must first serve the people, the citizens who voted and expressed confidence in certain officials.

In this sense, our people have the full right and dignity to accept public service. Only State power based on such principles is truly a people’s democratic power. The political, legal, socio-economic, spiritual and educational roots of such a state and society will be very strong. For this reason, easing the burden of the people, solving their problems in a timely and effective manner, and improving the standard and quality of life of the people was identified as the main goal of all reforms.

According to the strategy “Uzbekistan-2030”, the following were identified:

Establishment of effective judicial control over the activities of state bodies and officials and further development of the administrative justice system; complete elimination of factors that prevent direct appeal to administrative courts; increase the effectiveness of dispute resolution at the pre-trial stage by 50%; reduce by 50% the number of cases referred to the court for disputes that can be resolved in court full application of the principles of administrative procedures to signs and signals regulating traffic; achieving justice by strengthening the independence of the judiciary and ensuring transparency of its activities; ensuring the participation of a defender or public defender in 100 percent of criminal cases against business entities; full implementation of the principle of judicial self-government in the management of the judicial system and the full formation of a system of judicial community bodies.

During the implementation of legal reforms, in order to direct the activities of law enforcement agencies to protect the interests, dignity and human rights by creating a single electronic register, it is possible to monitor the process from the initiation of a criminal case to its initiation, and the issuance of a verdict in a case through an individual number and QR code is implemented.

The collection and synthesis of evidence is fully digitized through the introduction of modern technologies and the latest scientific achievements. It was decided to introduce a category of cases for ensuring the enforcement of documents of courts and other bodies with the help of the private sector, reduce the number of road accidents with serious consequences, store copies of criminal cases and materials in electronic form, and ensures the exchange of electronic documents.

It was planned to radically increase the potential of the Institute of Advocacy, as well as develop a system for providing qualified legal assistance, transfer the Institute of Advocacy to a self-government system and ensure its true independence from state bodies and other structures.

Introduction of a system of training lawyers in accordance with modern and international standards and based on the principle of alternativeness, increasing the number of lawyers, ensuring the exchange of electronic documents between civil, administrative and economic lawyers and courts, law enforcement agencies and other state bodies.

Improve the effectiveness of the system for eliminating corruption factors, continue to work on the formation of an intolerant attitude to corruption in society, and achieve a high level in the Corruption Acceptance Index published by Transparency International.

Full introduction of public control in order to reduce cases of violation of the requirements of legislative documents on public procurement, cases of embezzlement of funds in public procurement through direct conclusion of contracts, and prevention of excess prices for goods and services over market value. it was launched. It was decided to ensure the development of regulatory legal documents based on the principle of “corruption legislation”.

Improving criminal legislation is an important aspect of ensuring justice and transparency in our country. If we consider the Criminal Code and the system of punishments, then according to the new amendments to the Criminal Code of 2021, attention is focused on combating crime and ensuring justice in sentencing by the court.

Statistics and analysis show that important reforms have been implemented in the country and new standards of the judicial system are being developed. These actions are carried out in order to ensure justice, protect rights and freedoms, improve the legal literacy of the population and increase the transparency of legal proceedings.

The reforms of Uzbekistan’s judicial system are important in the context of the country’s legal reforms and have established direct cooperation with international organizations. At the same time, the reforms in the judicial system were effectively organized on time. In 2019, according to the EU report, the project “Improving the judicial system of Uzbekistan” was launched. Within the framework of the project, trainings and seminars were organized for judicial authorities and specialized legal institutions.

Technical assistance is provided for the modernization of courts in Uzbekistan within the framework of the World Bank’s” Ensuring Justice” program. As part of the bank’s program for 2020-2023, the $ 10 million project is aimed at general research. Automation of judicial processes is carried out in accordance with international standards. The experience of foreign countries is important in this process.

The Republic of Korea in 2021, an exchange of experience in automating judicial processes and implementing an electronic judicial system was carried out. The electronic judicial system of Korea is implemented in the courts of Uzbekistan.

Studies of the Italian judicial system make extensive use of the systematization of mature systems to accelerate and increase the transparency of judicial processes in Uzbekistan. More than 300 lawyers and judges from Uzbekistan took part in webinars organized by the Italian Law Institute.

Within the framework of the project with Germany (GIZ) for 2020-2022, new educational programs have been developed for law schools in Uzbekistan. These programs were implemented in accordance with international standards. In 2021, together with the US Law Institute, trainings and seminars were organized in accordance with international standards for improving the justice and judicial system in our republic.

The manifestation of international cooperation in ensuring the rights and freedoms of citizens means that the future of Uzbekistan is bright. Lawyers took part in the master class “Citizens ‘ Rights”, organized in 2020 as part of the UN protection. International cooperation in improving the judicial system of Uzbekistan is an important area of activity. Cooperation with international organizations, foreign countries and legal experts, and the development of cooperation on this issue on the basis of equality, this was an important step towards creating a stable and fair judicial system for our people. It is no exaggeration to say that these processes are one of the important steps being developed in Uzbekistan to ensure justice, protect human rights and improve legal literacy in society.

Building a democratic State governed by the rule of law and a fair civil society in Uzbekistan largely depends on the successful implementation of the rights and freedoms of individuals and citizens in the country. This, in turn, depends on how much the country’s legislation is strengthened. Violation of the freedom and inviolability of a person’s private life creates the right of every person to file a complaint with the court and restore their violated rights and satisfy their claims.

Our ancestor Amir Temur once said that “if the state is not built on the basis of laws, it will lose its glory, power and structure.” From this point of view, ensuring the Constitution and the rule of law is the main criterion of a democratic state based on the rule of law that we are building.” The principle of “man – society – state” adopted in the new Uzbekistan serves to bring the policy of glorifying human values to a qualitatively new level.