Judicial reform in New Uzbekistan: On whom do judges depend?

Ensuring the rule of law and further reform of the judicial and legal system are the second priority area of the Strategy “Uzbekistan – 2030” and provide for the independence of the judiciary, a guarantee of reliable protection of the rights and freedoms of citizens, and strengthening the rule of law in the judicial and legal system.
From 2017 to 2021, the judicial and legal system was revised, law enforcement agencies were reformed, aimed at ensuring reliable guarantees for the protection of the rights and freedoms of citizens, primarily from criminal attacks, as well as preventing infringement of their honor and dignity, and limiting their legitimate interests. The ongoing judicial and legal reforms are based on such constitutional principles as the rule of law, the priority of human rights and freedoms, equality of citizens before the law, humanism, justice and the presumption of innocence.
Thus, large-scale measures have been implemented to ensure the genuine independence of the judiciary, increase the authority of the court, democratize and improve the judicial system.
In implementing the norms of the Strategy, a single Supreme Court was created, the highest judicial body in the sphere of civil, criminal, administrative and economic proceedings, which strengthened the judicial power and created conditions for uniformity of judicial law enforcement practice.
The most important significant innovation in the judicial system of our country was the introduction of a new institution - the Supreme Judicial Council of the Republic of Uzbekistan, which is a body of the judicial community and assists in ensuring compliance with the constitutional principle of independence of the judiciary. It includes judges, lawyers, representatives of the legal and scientific community.
This body was created, including taking into account the recommendations of the Kyiv Conference on the Independence of the Judiciary of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It is the Council that is vested with the authority to select and form a highly qualified judicial corps.
Judges are now appointed or elected for an initial five-year, a subsequent ten-year and a lifetime term of office, which ensures stability in the judiciary and strengthens judicial independence.
This innovation fully meets the requirements of modern international and foreign experience. In accordance with Article 12 of the UN Basic Principles on the Independence of the Judiciary of 29 November 1985, judges, whether appointed or elected, have a guaranteed term of office until mandatory retirement or the expiration of the term of office, where such is established. In practice, this means that the judge retains the position he occupies until he reaches the maximum age.
implemented to increase the openness and transparency of the activities of judicial bodies, establish an open dialogue with the population and strengthen the role of the public in the administration of justice.
Taking into account the provisions of the new version of the Constitution, the most important direction of reforms in this area is the consistent expansion of the rights of participants in criminal proceedings. Thus, according to Article 28 of the Constitution, all doubts about guilt, if all possibilities to eliminate them have been exhausted, must be resolved in favor of the suspect, accused, defendant or convict. The suspect, accused or defendant is not obliged to prove his innocence and can exercise the right to remain silent at any time. At the same time, no one is obliged to testify against himself or herself or close relatives.
Another innovation is the provision that a person cannot be found guilty or punished if his admission of guilt is the only evidence against him.
Persons deprived of their liberty have the right to humane treatment and respect for the honour and dignity inherent in the human person.
A person’s criminal record and the legal consequences arising from it cannot be grounds for restricting the rights of his relatives.
The Code of Criminal Procedure includes a provision that a detained person has the right to appeal in court against a decision on the application of a preventive measure in the form of detention. The defense attorney has the right to collect and present evidence in a criminal case, which is subject to inclusion in the materials of the criminal case, as well as mandatory verification and assessment during the inquiry, preliminary investigation and consideration of the criminal case in court.
A mechanism for mandatory stenography of court proceedings has also been introduced.
The Civil Procedure Code, the Economic Procedure Code, and the Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan on Administrative Procedure were adopted in a new version, which fully reflect the essence and content of the democratic reforms being carried out in our country in the judicial and legal sphere.
Over the past years, criminal and criminal procedural legislation has undergone significant changes aimed at improving its norms, implementing advanced international standards and foreign practices in order to unconditionally ensure the rights and freedoms of citizens involved in criminal proceedings.
Comprehensive measures have been implemented to expand the scope of application of the institution of "Habeas Corpus", introduce a simplified procedure for criminal proceedings, and further strengthen guarantees of the rights and freedoms of citizens in judicial and investigative activities.
In the context of the application of the principles of the institution of “Habeas Corpus”, the powers to conduct investigative actions to seize postal and telegraph items and exhumations have been transferred from prosecutors to the courts.
The courts have begun to actively use modern information and communication technologies aimed at increasing the efficiency of judicial proceedings and raising public awareness of justice. Now citizens can apply to the court remotely and participate in court hearings using a videoconferencing system. The practice of posting court decisions on the Internet has also been established.
The institution of preliminary hearings in criminal courts was introduced with the aim of further strengthening human rights guarantees in legal proceedings and implementing the principle of adversarial proceedings. In this case, the court was ordered to make a final decision if there are sufficient grounds for suspending and terminating the case without returning the case to the prosecutor's office (previous investigation).
Since 2021, regional courts for civil, economic and criminal cases have been merged into a single court.
As a result of establishing such a procedure, by making a final decision on each case in court, the stability of judicial decisions is ensured, and red tape and wandering of citizens through the courts is prevented.
To ensure the legality, validity and fairness of court decisions, an audit procedure for reviewing court cases was introduced.
The reforms of the judicial and legal system of Uzbekistan carried out over the past years are already yielding positive results.
In particular, over these years, 2.3 thousand citizens who had previously been unjustly accused were acquitted. More than 3.5 thousand young people and women who could have received sentences in the form of imprisonment received more lenient sentences, taking into account the guarantees of self-governing bodies of citizens and public organizations.
The goal of the ongoing reforms of the judicial and legal system was to transform courts of various levels into real bodies that ensure the protection of the rights and legitimate interests of citizens. The court must become a real support for citizens. Judicial bodies must become truly independent, treat everyone equally, from the position of the rule of law - be it an ordinary citizen or an official. Over the past period, a huge amount of work has been done to transform the judicial power from a punitive body into a body for the protection of the rights, freedoms and interests of citizens.
Currently, the Concept for improving criminal-executive legislation is being implemented, including that aimed at humanizing the conditions of detention of persons in places of deprivation of liberty, and work is underway to develop a new version of the Criminal-Executive Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan.
As noted in the 2023 Address of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Sh. Mirziyoyev to the Parliament, there are issues awaiting resolution in terms of ensuring justice. Unfortunately, there are still low-quality investigations, red tape in the courts, and cases of non-enforcement of court decisions, so, of course, solving these problems will continue to be the focus of attention of the state and society. Ensuring the inevitability of responsibility for interference in the activities of the judiciary and for violating constitutional norms on the independence of justice is a guarantee of achieving the goals set in this area.
In conclusion, it is worth emphasizing that, according to international standards, all courts must be independent of the executive and legislative branches, as well as of the parties to the proceedings. This means that neither the judicial system nor the judges who comprise it should be dependent on other branches of government or the parties to the proceedings.
Shukhrat Mirzaev,
Chief Researcher
Institute of Legislation and Legal Policy
under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan