Defendants to Lose out in Legal Reform

A plan to reduce the role of “public defenders” – legal advocates who are not trained lawyers but are empowered to represent defendants in court – will make the judicial process in Uzbekistan more closed than ever, according to NBCentralAsia analysts.



A meeting of the Uzbek Supreme Court’s ruling body on July 30 reviewed progress on a number of ongoing legal reforms, suggesting that much had been done already to make the criminal law system more liberal and create a truly independent judiciary. The death penalty has been abolished since January, and later in the year the power to sanction arrests was transferred from prosecutors to the judiciary.



The next move is to reform the way lawyers operate; a set of amendments to the current legislation is already in parliament and expected to be passed in August. The changes include a new centralised lawyers’ chamber, raising the standards for prospective lawyers, and eliminating the role of untrained public defenders in court.



The legislation currently in force permits non-government organisations to send representatives to take part in trials, acting for the defence. Such individuals do not have to be qualified lawyers.



An expert on human rights issues explained how the system works. “People go to them [public defenders] because they believe that they will make a more realistic assessment of the situation, and that unlike lawyers, they will throw the matter open to public discussion, give interviews about it and attract the media’s attention to it,” he said.



Some practicing lawyers welcome the forthcoming change in the law, saying it will uphold people’s constitutional right to be represented by a qualified legal expert.



“Defence counsel in any trial should hold proper qualifications,” said Gulnara Ishankhanova, head of the Tashkent Association of Lawyers.



Ezgulik, a local human rights group, issued a sharply-worded statement saying the measure would reduce the scope for independent voices to make themselves heard in the courtroom.



“Trials will once again become closed and some categories of defendant will lose their right to defence counsel,” said a press release issued by the group. “Lawyers will be muzzled and they will be under the thumb of the lawyers’ chamber.”



Other observers remind that some politically motivated cases became public only due to participation of the independent defense in these trials.



Surat Ikramov, who heads the Initiative Group of Independent Human Rights Activists of Uzbekistan, has frequently represented defendants in criminal cases, and says the presence of a well-informed third party helps establish the truth.



“Public advocates have never impeded judicial proceedings,” he insisted. “Yet since the beginning of 2008, representatives of the Initiative Group of Independent Human Rights Activists of Uzbekistan have not been allowed into courtrooms even in the role of observers. And that’s in spite of the fact that the restrictive legislation has not yet been passed.”



Suhrob Ismailov, director of Rapid Response Group, an analytical group based in Tashkent, suspects the abolition of public defenders is part of a wider clampdown which will also affect trained lawyers. Together with the new lawyer’s chamber, which private as well as state lawyers will be forced to join, it will make it even harder to obtain the services of a truly independent advocate.



(NBCA 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.)