Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) – A draft law on public examination is discussed in Uzbekistan.

Consideration and protection of the interests of citizens when adopting bills is called for a public examination. The draft law on public examination developed by the National Center for Human Rights of the Republic of Uzbekistan was discussed at a round table on November 4, 2019.

Discussions were organized by the Committee on Democratic Institutions, Non-Governmental Organizations and Self-Government Bodies of Citizens of the Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan together with the National Center for Human Rights of the Republic of Uzbekistan with the support of the OSCE Project Coordinator in Uzbekistan.

Public examination of normative legal acts is aimed at analyzing their quality, effectiveness, compliance with legislation, appropriateness and consequences of adoption.

According to the seminar participants, many measures have been taken in Uzbekistan to organize public control, however, as practice shows, they have not yet become truly effective. In particular, from January 1, 2019, the Internet launched and operates the Unified Electronic System for the development and approval of draft regulatory legal acts, and the My Opinion website also operates. However, they did not change the situation in the field of public participation in the examination of normative legal acts, ensuring the consideration of citizens’ opinions in this area.

This is due, according to analysts, including the fact that the definition of “Public Expertise” has not yet been enshrined in law, that is, this important institution does not have the necessary legal norms. The new bill aims to fill this gap.

Public examination of bills should become a form of effective public control over the process of adoption of laws. The development of this institution in Uzbekistan will be able to really increase the degree of citizen participation in government, positively influencing the further development of civil society.

As the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev noted, speaking with the first message on December 22, 2017 to deputies and senators, “the people should be the only source and author of the law. Opinions and suggestions for each bill will come directly from citizens, local councils of deputies. In the process of adopting laws, we must effectively use the system of wide discussion of draft laws by the population. ”

Seminar participants expressed their suggestions for improving the bill. The general opinion was the idea that the new law clearly spelled out the necessary mechanisms for conducting a public examination, the timing of responses from government agencies to the recommendations presented as a result, the validity of the refusal to take into account certain proposals, the results of using the recommendations taken into account, etc. That is, it should be a law of direct action, an instrument that will allow citizens to directly participate in the process of adopting effective and substantiated laws.

During the seminar, the First Deputy Director of the National Center for Human Rights of the Republic of Uzbekistan Mirzatilla Tillaboev, acting OSCE Project Coordinator in Uzbekistan Hans-Ulrich Im, Head of the Department of the Institute for Legislation and Parliamentary Studies under the Oliy Majlis Alim Akilov, Director of the Independent Institute for Monitoring the Formation of Civil Society Rustam Kamilov, Chief Advisor to the Ministry of Justice Alisher Ismoilov and others.

The adoption of the law on public examination will allow it to become an obligatory stage of the rule-making process, a special legal institution in the adoption of not only laws, but also all types of regulatory documents, it will bring the process of public control to a new level, become it the norm of the modern democratic development of Uzbekistan.