Judicial Reform Plan Underwhelms
Judicial Reform Plan Underwhelms
The Uzbek authorities have announced plans to create a fairer court system, but analysts expect no change to the current system where the judiciary are there merely to execute the will of government.
At the end of June, President Islam Karimov signed off on a decree on set up a research centre to draft recommendations on making the judicial system more liberal, independent, and “democratic”, without explaining the latter concept. The centre is also supposed to design ways of preventing unjust verdicts from being handed down, and of ensuring the courts are not vulnerable to external interference.
Functionally, the centre would come under the Supreme Court.
Officials say the move is one of a number of legal reforms being implemented this year.
At the start of the year, a ban on the death penalty came into effect, soon after that the right to issue arrest warrants was transferred from police to judges, and in May the president signed a decree outlining reforms to the legal profession.
Analysts interviewed by NBCentralAsia are pessimistic that any of these announcements will translate into real change. Lawyers in the country say people make little use of the courts as they do not believe the system delivers justice.
In its report for 2007, the United States-based watchdog Freedom House listed Uzbekistan as an authoritarian state where the courts are dependent on the executive.
The new research centre is unlikely to be effective as it will be subject to control by a government that prefers cosmetic over systemic reforms, they say.
Under Uzbekistan’s current constitution, judges are hired and fired by the president, and parliament is not even asked to give its consent except when the heads of the top three institutions are being appointed – the chairpersons of the Constitutional Court, Supreme Court and the high court of litigation on economic matters.
“The current nomination system is entirely under Karimov’s control,” said a judge in Tashkent, who did not want to be named. “Our judges are always thinking about whether the president will confirm them for another term, so none of them feels completely independent.”
Ibrahim Nazirov, a lawyer in Tashkent, said the government was not yet ready to ensure complete independence for the judiciary.
“A controllable judge offers great opportunities for getting rid of one’s opponents,” he said. “Only when the executive is unable to influence judges will we be able to say the judicial system is independent.”
(NBCentralAsia is an IWPR-funded project to create a multilingual news analysis and comment service for Central Asia, drawing on the expertise of a broad range of political observers across the region. The project ran from August 2006 to September 2007, covering all five regional states. With new funding, the service is resuming, covering only Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan for the moment.)
At the end of June, President Islam Karimov signed off on a decree on set up a research centre to draft recommendations on making the judicial system more liberal, independent, and “democratic”, without explaining the latter concept. The centre is also supposed to design ways of preventing unjust verdicts from being handed down, and of ensuring the courts are not vulnerable to external interference.
Functionally, the centre would come under the Supreme Court.
Officials say the move is one of a number of legal reforms being implemented this year.
At the start of the year, a ban on the death penalty came into effect, soon after that the right to issue arrest warrants was transferred from police to judges, and in May the president signed a decree outlining reforms to the legal profession.
Analysts interviewed by NBCentralAsia are pessimistic that any of these announcements will translate into real change. Lawyers in the country say people make little use of the courts as they do not believe the system delivers justice.
In its report for 2007, the United States-based watchdog Freedom House listed Uzbekistan as an authoritarian state where the courts are dependent on the executive.
The new research centre is unlikely to be effective as it will be subject to control by a government that prefers cosmetic over systemic reforms, they say.
Under Uzbekistan’s current constitution, judges are hired and fired by the president, and parliament is not even asked to give its consent except when the heads of the top three institutions are being appointed – the chairpersons of the Constitutional Court, Supreme Court and the high court of litigation on economic matters.
“The current nomination system is entirely under Karimov’s control,” said a judge in Tashkent, who did not want to be named. “Our judges are always thinking about whether the president will confirm them for another term, so none of them feels completely independent.”
Ibrahim Nazirov, a lawyer in Tashkent, said the government was not yet ready to ensure complete independence for the judiciary.
“A controllable judge offers great opportunities for getting rid of one’s opponents,” he said. “Only when the executive is unable to influence judges will we be able to say the judicial system is independent.”
(NBCentralAsia is an IWPR-funded project to create a multilingual news analysis and comment service for Central Asia, drawing on the expertise of a broad range of political observers across the region. The project ran from August 2006 to September 2007, covering all five regional states. With new funding, the service is resuming, covering only Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan for the moment.)
