Uzbekistan: Prosecutor General’s Office proposes a bill on property confiscation

The legitimization of confiscation concerning previously outstanding cases is specified in a new bill prepared by the Prosecutor General’s Office and issued for discussion. It determines that “coercive measures concerning a property in the form of special confiscation can be applied on the basis of a sentence or a court decision for the purpose of gratuitous seizure and transfer of property to the state”.

Such kind of property, in particular, will include “obtained as a result of criminal activity, as well as any profit or benefit obtained from the use of this property” and “intended or used for the purpose of financing or otherwise providing extremist or terrorist activities, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or an organized criminal group or a criminal community”.

The introduction of such norms into practice presupposes an expanded interpretation of the guilt of the accused by the court and presupposes the corruption component of the court decision. At the meeting in June, Mirziyoev, in particular, pointed out the need to cancel the revision of the results of privatization and to prevent government agencies from speaking with such an initiative, which should be enshrined in legislation. The President noted that the issue of abolishing property rights can only be resolved in court. The new confiscation bill will allow interested parties to easily violate the rights of owners after a criminal case has been initiated against them.

The regulation on combating the financing of terrorism also will be a preventive measure against adherents of a religious persuasion. In this case, the court verdict will be able to demand the confiscation of the property of any person suspected of extremism if his/her guilt is determined. The Uzbek legal proceedings are coping with this successfully. The measures recommended by the Prosecutor General’s Office will serve as a prevention against the involvement of citizens in religious practices.

The draft law provides for the introduction of amendments and additions to the chapters and articles of the Criminal Code, as well as to the Criminal Procedure Code, the Code of Administrative Responsibility, the Criminal Executive Code, the laws “On the State Customs Service”, “On the State Tax Service”, “On normative legal acts”, etc.