Information on ongoing reforms and transformations in the field of human rights

With the election of Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the President of Uzbekistan outlined specific guidelines for the country's strategic development. Achieving these benchmarks requires the implementation of a number of mutually agreeing reforms, which are identified in the priority areas of the Action Strategy for 2017-2021.

The Ministry of Justice of Uzbekistan is actively involved in the implementation of the priority areas of the Strategy of Action, especially in the field of ensuring the rule of law and further reform of the judicial system.

The past period was marked by extensive reforms aimed at strengthening the guarantees of the protection of human rights.

1. At the end of last year, the first Asian human rights forum was successfully held in Samarkand, dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This once again confirms Uzbekistan’s strong commitment to its international obligations under international human rights conventions.

Uzbekistan intends to continue holding similar forums every two years.

It should be noted that the declared goals of the Strategy of Action of Uzbekistan are fully consistent with the UN Sustainable Development Goals until 2030, which were reflected in the final document of the Asian Forum - the Samarkand Declaration on Human Rights.

Uzbekistan, as the initiator of the Asian Forum and the co-author of the Samarkand Declaration, intends to promote the full implementation of this document.

To this end, the Parliament of Uzbekistan approved the Road Map for the implementation of proposals and recommendations based on the results of the Asian Forum for 2019-2020.

2. In May 2018, at the thirtieth session of the Human Rights Council (HRC), Uzbekistan submitted its Third National Report as part of the Universal Periodic Review. Following the review of the National Report of Uzbekistan, the HRC Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review published its report, which was approved by the Decision of the thirty-ninth session of the Human Rights Council in September 2018.

This report contained a number of recommendations formulated during an interactive dialogue during the thirtieth session of the HRC regarding gender equality, effective protection of women's rights, including in the field of education, labor, as well as increasing the role of women in political, economic, social and other fields of life.

It is noteworthy that out of 201 recommendations considered acceptable by the Uzbek delegation, a quarter is devoted to precisely this issue. This in turn served as a somewhat of guideline for planning further reforms in this direction.

In this regard, literally at the beginning of September 2019, two laws were signed:

“On guarantees of equal rights and opportunities for women and men”;

“On the Protection of Women from Harassment and Violence.”

It is noteworthy that gender-legal expertise in Uzbekistan will concern not only future legislative acts, but also existing ones. Starting today, work begins in this direction.

3. Last year, at the political level, an important and strong-willed decision was made to eliminate the problems and various bureaucratic barriers that have existed in the activities of NGOs for many years and to build a free civil society in the country.

Significantly simplified requirements and procedures for the activities of NGOs.

Firstly, the procedure for coordination of events has been replaced by the procedure for notification of planned events.

Secondly, funds and property received from abroad to NGO accounts for the implementation of the statutory tasks are used without any obstacles after their approval.

Thirdly, the receipt of grant funds for NGOs is carried out on their especially open accounts in any banking institutions of the country.

N.B.: Thus was canceled the 14-year procedure, according to which it was required to open special accounts only in the Asaka Bank and the NBU.

Fourth, according to the new procedure for monitoring and studying the activities of NGOs, the types, terms, frequency and other procedures for their implementation are fixed, and the reporting forms that are to be submitted to state bodies are simplified and reduced.

Fifth, since the beginning of the year, an electronic system of interaction between the Ministry of Justice and NGOs has been introduced.

Sixth, the Advisory Council on the Development of Civil Society under the President has been created. The Council includes 35 representatives of NGOs.

Seventh, from next year, the state duty rates for registration of the interregional NGOs are reduced from 4 times the base estimated value to 3 times, and regional to 1 times.

In addition, a draft Code on Non-Governmental Non-Profit Organizations is being prepared, providing for the codification and systematization of legislation on non-governmental non-profit organizations based on the study of international best practices and established national law enforcement practice.

4. Recognizing the fact that one of the important factors in the realization of human rights is the level of legal awareness of citizens, a system of free legal advice to citizens has been launched in the country on the basis of the newly created Advice.uz portal. To date, it has more than 1000 pages of content on the main legal issues covering all spheres of public life.

In order to maintain and constantly improve the web-site Advice.uz (e-maslahat.uz), the NGO “Madad” (“Help”) was created, which will fulfill the social order of the Ministry of Justice to provide free legal advice and practical legal assistance to the population.

To fulfill this goal, in each district (city), Madad legal advisory bureaus are creating gradually.

Free legal advice will be provided online and volunteers are attracted to harmonize legal knowledge with socio-political changes.

At the same time, the Ministry of Justice has developed a draft law “On Free Legal Aid,” which establishes an updated procedure and criteria for automatically determining a lawyer to provide legal assistance to a suspect or accused person at the state’s expense, while not allowing the possibility of selecting the same lawyers, as well as third-party interference in this process.

At the same time, the authority to determine a lawyer passes from the investigating authorities to the justice authorities, which will ensure the exclusion of subjectivity and conflict of interest in this process.

5. Given the assignment to the Ministry of Justice of the task of ensuring the effective functioning of the legal profession system and other structures that provide legal services to individuals and legal entities, last year was initiated a radical reform to improve the legal profession system, as an institution ensuring the equality of parties in legal proceedings.

It should be noted that in this process the Ministry of Justice deliberately renounced many of its powers to regulate the activities of the advocates system in favor of the advocates community.

In particular, the procedure for issuing aadvocate's license and state registration of law and advocate’sfirms has been greatly simplified. According to the current procedure, a passport and an application are sufficient to obtain a license, while the amount of payment has been halved (from 2 minimum wages to 1 minimum wage).

Today, there are more than 4 thousand advocates in the Republic who provide legal assistance to individuals and legal entities.

The composition of the qualification commissions is composed of advocates with authority among colleagues, as well as experienced specialists in the field of law. Moreover, if the commission consists of 7 people, at least 4 members of the commission must be advocates and if the commission consists of 9 people, at least 5 members of the commission must be advocates.

Currently, the participation of the Ministry of Justice in the qualification commission is minimized. That is, in the composition of the highest qualification commission of 9 people, the Ministry of Justice is represented only by 1 nominal representative, whose vote is not critical. Earlier, qualification commissions were formed from an equal number of advocates and employees of the Ministry of Justice.

The participation of an advocate as an arbitrator, as well as pre-trial settlement of disputes and reconciliation of the parties, has been entrenched.

The terms of compulsory internship in a law and advocate firms have been reduced for obtaining a license for the right to practice law from six months to three months and re-passing the qualification exam for acquiring the status of anadvocate from one year to six months.

The role of the Chamber of Advocates of the Republic of Uzbekistan as a defender of the institution of the advocacy has been increased, in particular, now draft legal acts on issues related to advocacy and legal proceedings are subject to approval by the Chamber of Advocates, and the chairman of the Chamber of Advocates will be entitled to participate in meetings The Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan to discuss draft laws and express opinions on them.

Since last year, license termination is carried out exclusively by the judicial order at the request of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Uzbekistan on the basis of the conclusion of the High Qualification Commission.

The period of non-performance of anadvocate without valid reasons of his professional duties, which is the basis for termination of the license, from three months to six months has been extended; specific deadlines have been set for the application of disciplinary measures against anadvocate.

Disciplinary proceedings against advocates can only be instituted by decision of the relevant qualification commission or the High Qualification Commission.

It should be noted that the cases of termination of the advocate's license in the first half of this year decreased by 2.3 times (13) compared with the same period last year.