A group of civil activists from the city of Nukus monitored trials in civil cases in the Republic of Karakalpakstan. The very first visit to the trial shocked the observers.
On August 3, 2022, the judge of the Interdistrict Court of Nukus didn’t let the observer into the empty hall for an open trial, referring to the fact that the participants don’t want the presence of an outsider.
In addition to the Constitution and the Code of Civil Procedure, there is also the Decree of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan “On ensuring the openness of court proceedings and the right to receive information on the activities of the courts”, which also guarantees citizens to be present at open trials. On the same day and in the same court, another judge conducted a trial in a white dress with blue spots, which is strictly prohibited by Article 95 of the Law “On courts”, because the judge is obliged to administer justice in special clothes – judge’s gowns.
Observers filed a complaint with the Qualification Board of Judges of the Republic of Karakalpakstan about the actions of judges, after which they were allowed to freely participate in open trials. In total, Karakalpakstan has five first judicial instances for civil cases, in which only 10 judges work.
Observers recorded other violations of the Code of Civil Procedure by judges. For example, many judges ignore the written evidence provided by participants. Simply, without even looking at them, they put things in the folder.
It also turned out that the majority of judges don’t explain to the participants in the trial their procedural rights and obligations. This is especially true of trials postponed for one reason or another. There is no clear control over which of the participants has the last remark.
The observers recorded trials in which the plaintiffs had the last word, although according to Article 244 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the last remark must always belong to the defendant. And the judge of the Interdistrict Court of Kungrad allowed the witness to be present in the hall during the trial, although it was necessary to remove the witness from the hall.
The Interdistrict Court of Nukus, where 4 judges work, bears a huge burden of considering cases. Very often, the schedule indicates 160-170, and sometimes 200 cases per day. It is clear that such a number of trials per day cannot be considered qualitatively with such a small staff, so many proceedings are postponed. However, according to the Code of Civil Procedure, there are certain deadlines for considering citizens’ applications. In this connection, the judges begin to rush and produce court decisions, sparing only a few minutes to many processes.
The results of the monitoring are disappointing: the legal literacy of judges is often at a low level. Many courthouses are very inconvenient. The narrow corridors of the Court of Nukus are crowded with citizens who are constantly swearing loudly and arguing, whose turn it is to take away the court decision, knocking on the doors of the hall every 3-4 minutes, distracting the judges from the process. So the courts of the republic turn into a farce, and people lose hope for justice.
