Do the Uzbek judges respect the court?

On January 16, 2023, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed Decree #11 “On Additional Measures to Further Expand Access to Justice and Improve the Efficiency of the Courts https://lex.uz/ru/docs/5841077

According to the President of Uzbekistan, Uzbek citizens already have access to justice, and it has even been expanded, but additional measures must be taken to further expand and improve it.

In particular, the decree provides for the development of effective (!) mechanisms to prevent cases of contempt of court (!!), to strengthen measures of administrative responsibility for this, and to establish criminal responsibility (!!!)

How can we speak of respect for the court if the judges themselves respect neither themselves, nor the court, much less justice. In demolition cases, judges often use irrelevant law to make their decisions.

For example, judges rule on the forced eviction of private property owners on the terms of a private developer’s commercial interests. The judges, under the guise of “analogy of law”, refer to the provisions of the law concerning eviction from municipal or departmental housing for state needs. We wrote a lot about this on this website and in the Tashkent SNOS group. We wrote about it in our alternative report to the 71st Session of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) (https://housing-uz.info/ru/en/834/)

At trials after the announcement of an illegal decision, desperate people shout curses in the faces of judges, directly accuse them of corruption, but they don’t give a damn. Stone faces, stone hearts. However, for such statements now it is possible to receive either administrative or criminal punishment. However, it will not add to the respect of the court.

Diyora Rafieva, an Uzbek lawyer, shares her experience on her Facebook page (3 e. – )

“Case from experience.
Principal: I ask for permission to represent my interests by D.R. on the basis of a power of attorney.
Supreme Court: Deny the petition.
DR: But they won’t have a defense. They can’t find the right lawyer. Either lawyers refuse to take the case. Justify your denial of the motion.
Chairman of the Supreme Court: Don’t make Bazaar out of it!
DR: 😳😳😳
********
“Due to the upcoming changes, will ‘Bazaar’ in the Uzbek court be considered ‘contempt of court’? “, asks Diyora.

Representation is denied most often on the pretext that the attorney in question is not a lawyer. On what grounds the lawyer was denied, as Diyora writes, “the ‘distinguished’ court did not find it necessary to justify either in writing or orally.

Most likely because the other side of the process was against it.

Very often, representatives of government agencies summoned to court are either very late or do not come. And they do not bear any responsibility for contempt of court. And when they come, they answer in an unintelligible way, thus misleading the court. And they are not held accountable for this either.

It is impossible to complain about the judges for such words as “don’t make a bazaar”, “don’t wave your constitution here”, “come quickly, because we still have other processes”… because the words of judges are not recorded in the minutes.

I was at one court where the judge and his secretary made gross procedural mistakes: elementary did not carry out identification of the representative of the defendant (the builder who actually was the third party in the process against khokimiyat), nevertheless have accepted from him a reference of the claimant on representation by the trustee and have heard his point of view on the claimant’s complaint. When after that, at the request of the plaintiff’s attorney, they started to identify the representative, he provided a power of attorney to another developer altogether! Nevertheless, when the attorney for the residents filed a challenge to the judge for these reasons, the challenge was not made! And these violations were recorded!

Prominent Uzbek legal scholar Leonid Khvan writes under the post of Diora Rafieva:
“The Decree should have referred not to respect for the court, but to “respect for justice. This is more important, because the reputation of the court as an institution is greatly diminished by the unfortunate actions of the judge (he cannot listen, interrupts the lawyer or witness, but not the prosecutor), the secretary of the session and, of course, other participants.

Diora Rafieva answers: “The wording you suggested is really better for our context! People in our country are usually very afraid of the judge (what kind of insult or failure to comply with a request). And I do not want this tool to be abused at the trial and not him. For example, when in social networks they condemn/criticize the judge’s decision.

And this issue – prosecution for criticizing judges and decisions – is very important!

The Supreme Court has already expressed its dissatisfaction with the indignation of residents against the court decision on demolition: https://sud.uz/ru/28-11-2019-12345678946132/

The press service of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Uzbekistan then warned: “We would like to note that any emotional assessments and statements regarding the consideration of this case in court and the court decision itself, and the comments following them, published in the publicly accessible “Tashkent – SNOS” group on the social network Facebook will not help to resolve the dispute. Moreover, such actions are considered inadmissible, because they are unlawful and can be regarded as pressure on the court”.

That is, a man’s house is taken away from him by illegal decisions of hokims and judges, and he still has to keep respect for these structures? He should suppress despair and express slavish obedience to the masters of life?

By Farida Sharifullina