"RECENT REFORMS AND NEW ADMINISTRATIVE COURT SYSTEM IN UZBEKISTAN: CASE STUDY OF IMPLEMENTATION OF NEW LAWS"

Abstract

"Judicial protection against individual and normative acts of the public administration continues to be problematic in Uzbekistan. One central reason for this issue is the continuing prevalence of Soviet-style ideas and patterns in legal thinking, as well as legal practice. This article describes the problems that jurisdictions encounter in trying to overcome their Soviet heritage by developing legal protection in administrative matters, and analyses the strategies for the improvement of this situation. In this regard, there is a common perception in post-Soviet countries that citizens are allowed to appeal against the administrative penalty that was imposed after disobedience against a certain administrative act, rather than directly appeal to the court against the administrative act before an administrative penalty. Therefore, it is quite difficult to develop administrative justice without changing the misperception in the understanding of administrative offences as a part of administrative justice in Uzbekistan. Importantly, the recent reforms taking place in Uzbekistan give big hope to develop administrative justice without including administrative offence cases. It is a positive move in the context of post-Soviet countries that administrative justice has been delinked from traditional Soviet administrative offence cases. Relevantly, this paper explores (1) the main reforms held on judicial review over administrative acts in today’s Uzbekistan, and (2) transformation points of judicial review. Overall, I argue that Soviet thinking on judicial review of administrative acts has a big change in the legislation level under the new regime of Uzbekistan. However, legal reforms are still not accepted by legal practice, doctrine, and legal education. Based on this, it should be emphasized that the development of the administrative law theory in Uzbekistan is important: in particular, the need to maintain the relationship between theory and court practice through constant analysis of court decisions in the field of administrative law; the importance of training legal personnel based on a case study of researching administrative court decisions; the importance of developing substantive administrative law; and developing new areas of positive administrative law."