Legal policy starting point

The EU’s strategy of partnership with Central Asia has been implemented since 2007 in the legal field by various initiatives to promote the rule of law and democracy. In this context, the large-scale EU-financed grant project on the administration of criminal law is particularly significant for the IRZ, and continued to exert a major impact on the commitment for Uzbekistan in 2012.

Top priorities constitute:

• liberalisation of the legal system, 
• the fight against corruption,
• effective foundations of administrative law.

The focus here will be on the development of a legal sytem which follows rule-of-law principles in all fields. The goal is to ensure greater legal security for the individual citizen.

Cooperation to date

In 2012, the IRZ was able to further intensify the bilateral and specialist exchange with various judicial institutions, particularly with the Ministry of Justice. This applies both to the previous foci of the legal dialogue, and to more specific legal topics, which were dealt with for the first time this year: industrial property protection, drafting of criminological expert reports and assessment of the consequences of statutes. In future, there is also to be sustained support in sub-areas of the law where these are needed. The most important goal of cooperation with Uzbekistan remains the stabilisation of a legal system with democratic and rule-of-law principles.

Major partners

• Ministry of Justice 
• Legal Further Training Centre 
• Sulaimanova Centre for Court Reports
• Presidential Institute on the Management and Coordination of Legislative Procedures

Focus of activity

Rule of law and justice

• Seminar on the topic of assessment of the consequences of statutes in Tashkent together with the Presidential Institute.

Criminal law and criminal procedural law

• Lectures by German experts from the Federal Criminal Police Office and “Land“ Criminal Police Office in Saxony on the situation of German criminology and the respective special discipline (DNA, language recognition) in Germany in cooperation with the Sulaimanova Centre.

Civil and commercial law

• Fact-finding mission to Germany with the participation of representatives of the Ministry of Justice and Uzbek notaries, headed by first deputy Minister of Justice Esemurat Kanyazov; 
• Seminar on the topic of industrial property protection in Tashkent in cooperation with the Legal Further Training Centre.

Administrative law

• Advice for the Ministry of Justice in reforming the Code to Regulate Administrative Law Responsibility (the law on regulatory offences) with the support of the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa);
• Fact-finding mission on the topic of “The Law on Regulatory Offences” by an Uzbek working party headed by the Deputy Minister of Justice Otabek Murodov;
• Seminar in Uzbekistan on the same topic with the support of the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa); 
• Two-volume publication of the subject contributions which were drawn up during the two years of cooperation with the support of the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations.

Outlook

The EU-financed project on the reform of criminal law, running until the autumn of 2014, will also constitute a large share of the cooperation between the IRZ and the Republic of Uzbekistan in 2013. Additionally, cooperation in the field of the rule of law and justice, civil and commercial law, as well as administrative law, will cover the previous and new partner institutions. The continuation of the advice on administrative procedure law should be particularly stressed in this context. The IRZ furthermore intends to increase the existing contacts with the Supreme Commercial Court, as well as with both chambers of Parliament.

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