In Uzbekistan, undemocratic laws are being passed under cover of a pandemic
In the context of the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, lawmaking continues, aimed at strengthening the repressive mechanism of suppressing civic activity. A draft law on public safety and its concept have been published on the government portal.
The bill gives powers to the law enforcement agencies that already have them. In the concept, the developer [the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Uzbekistan] explains this by the fact that in this way “systematization in one normative legal act of norms and general principles governing the relationship between state bodies, citizens and organizations arising from the implementation of measures to ensure public safety” is achieved.
Lawyers of the department interpret the provisions of the law by no means in the interests of the individual, which would be natural for the country declaring its desire for democratic development. The state intends to protect citizens solely under the article 3 of the draft law, “Public safety is a state of protection of public safety objects from possible dangers and threats that could harm them. The object of public security is to ensure the rights, freedoms and legitimate interests of citizens, personal security and property protection in public places.”
The concept nevertheless states that a citizen is an object of public safety, but in the law he has only obligations. For example, contrary to the right to property and personal life, at the first request, a citizen is obliged to allow representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, State Security Service, Prosecutor’s office, Ministry of Emergency Situations, the Ministry of Justice and the National Guard in their housing. There is also the right to “participate in ensuring public safety and public order”.
According to the expert of ACCA, thus, the Ministry of Internal Affairs is not interested in the interests of the individual and his/her protection. “Therefore, the article 5, which lists the basic principles of ensuring public safety, is a set of fine words,” the expert notes. “There is a steady tendency to blur in the lawmaking of really important concepts for residents of the country: respect for the rule of law, protection of rights and freedoms. The interpretation of the norms of the new law by the security forces will simply give scope for abuse of authority.”
As ACCA previously wrote, on March 24, at the third plenary meeting of the upper house of the Uzbek Parliament, a scandalous bill was adopted that eliminated the concept of advocate secrecy.
In connection with the introduction of new types of operational-search measures, the Law “On guarantees of advocacy and the social protection of advocates” is amended, with the approval of the prosecutor, providing for control of negotiations, transmission of messages and data carried out by the lawyer from telecommunication devices.
On April 7, a draft resolution of the State Tax Committee and the Central Bank of Uzbekistan was published for discussion. It proposes to introduce the procedure by which the Central Bank and banks will inform STC about the turnover on customers’ bank cards.
The proposal caused a wide public outcry. At the time of publication of the news, hundreds of reviews of indignant citizens were left under the project. Most of people opposed the adoption of the document. They write that a violation of the bank secrecy law will affect citizens’ trust in banks, and entrepreneurs will switch to cash, increasing the share of the shadow economy.
