There is no independent judiciary in Tajikistan, and much of this system still depends on the executive branch.
Another example of interference by the authorities in the work of judges is the detention of Rustam Saidahmadzoda (judge of Bobojon from Gafurov district).
This judge became aware after he delivered an acquittal in the case of a resident of Khujand, Afzal Madjidi, who was accused of fraud in May 2021.
Then a simple civil dispute between an employee of the Air Communications Agency, which belongs to the daughter of the President of the country, and this citizen resulted in a criminal case, which was initiated by the Transport Prosecutor’s Office on orders from above.
The judge, having studied all the materials of the case, issued a verdict of not guilty, indicating in his decision that Afzal Madjidi ‘was acquitted due to the absence of corpus delicti in his actions’.
However, then the case took a completely different turn. The transport prosecutor burst into the judge’s office, and rudely, using obscene language, demanded to give him ‘an acquittal immediately’.
The Supreme Court, at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Tajikistan, opened an administrative case against judge Rustam Saidahmadzoda, stating that ‘in 2020 and five months of 2021, five sentences passed by Rustam Saidahmadzoda were overturned by higher instances’. As one of the experts noted at the time, ‘judges who act independently are subjected to severe pressure in Tajikistan, and the judicial system and law enforcement agencies in Tajikistan don’t tolerate such people in their ranks’.
The judge turned to the head of the executive office of the President of Tajikistan, Ozoda Rahmon, for help, outlining all the facts, but it was this appeal that became the basis for accusing the judge of deliberately false denunciation of the crime.
Relatives of Rustam Saidahmadzoda told the media that the judge was detained on June 29 by officials from the Department for Combating Organized Crime under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan after he was discharged from one of the clinics in Dushanbe.
“Most likely, he was being followed. When he turned to Kafolat law office for help, they came and took him to the temporary detention center under the Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Dushanbe. A lawyer wasn’t allowed to see him,” one of Saidahmadzoda’s relatives said on condition of anonymity.
One of Rustam Saidahmadzoda’s colleagues said that the Prosecutor General’s Office of Tajikistan initiated a criminal case against the judge of Bobojon court of Gafurov district under Article 346 (part 2) of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Tajikistan (“Knowingly false denunciation of a crime”), but he doesn’t know the details. Rustam Saidahmadzoda faces up to five years in prison.
Saidahmadzoda was appointed as a judge of Bobojon court of Gafurov district in 2017. Prior to that, he worked as a judge of the District Court of Shahristan.
