Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- At the thirty-sixth plenary session of the Senate, the Law "On the Prevention of Offenses" was considered.

This Law was developed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in order to effectively implement the state policy on the prevention of offenses, to ensure the full regulation of relations in this area.

It was emphasized that during the development of the Law, it is absolutely impossible to allow haste, a superficial approach and without sufficient grounds to establish rules binding on all.

Attention was drawn to the fact that the Crime Prevention Law is no exception to this requirement.

The law consists of 8 chapters and 88 articles. The discussions held by the Senate Committee on Defense and Security with the participation of specialists, experts, and scientists showed the need for its revision.

As the senators noted, a number of norms of the Law do not correspond to other existing laws, including provisions directly or indirectly related to the prevention of offenses, even sometimes they contradict and are opposite to them.

In particular, Article 19 of the Law establishes as powers in the field of crime prevention that healthcare institutions develop and implement measures to prevent the use of alcohol and tobacco products among minors, provide round-the-clock reception and provision of medical assistance to minors who are in a state of alcoholic intoxication.

Another issue that was discussed at the plenary session. The Law “On Restricting the Distribution and Consumption of Alcoholic and Tobacco Products” defines persons under the age of twenty-one as subjects of direct influence.

It is noted that this discrepancy in both laws should be eliminated, that is, both laws should reflect a unified and acceptable approach to relations related to minors and persons under the age of twenty-one.

Secondly, article 3 of the Law defines a neglected minor as a minor whose behavior is not controlled due to evasion of his duties or improper performance of his duties in his maintenance, upbringing and education by parents or other legal representatives of the minor.

In accordance with article 64 of the Constitution, parents have the obligation to support and educate their children until they reach the age of majority.

Based on this, it is necessary to review the concept of a neglected minor for its compliance with Article 64 of the Constitution.

Thirdly, Article 43 of the Law states that the form of the official warning is approved by the Ministry of Justice. And in the current regulations it is established that the form of an official warning is approved by the Cabinet of Ministers

However, neither the experts nor the initiators of the law during the preliminary discussions were able to substantiate why this authority is supposed to be transferred from the Government to the ministry.

Although such an approach, which leads to the approval by one ministry of the form of a document of a mandatory procedural or official nature, for ministries and departments equated to it, is absolutely contrary to priority norms. In addition, article 32 of the Law defines the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Uzbekistan as a single state body coordinating crime prevention activities.

The senators stressed that this Law needs serious improvement, and its approval in its current form in practice, instead of efficiency, will cause more problems.

The law was rejected by the senators.