President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed the Administrative Procedure Bill into Law yesterday. The law was passed by the Legislative Chamber on December 14 and was approved by the Senate on December 20.
The law, which will enter into force one year later, is aimed at introducing modern organizational and legal forms of activity of executive bodies, strengthening the mechanism of internal control, excluding formalism and abuses in public administration and ensuring efficiency in provision of public services and introduction of modern procedures for exercise of rights and freedoms of natural and legal perons.
The law applies to administrative and legal activities of administrative bodies with respect to concerned parties, including in relation to licensing, authorization, registration procedures, those related to provision of other public services, as well as other administrative and legal activities.
The law does not apply to relations arising in the field of preparation and adoption of normative and legal acts, levying of taxes and other mandatory payments, civil service, referendums, elections, defense, public security and law and order, as well as operational search activities, inquiry, preliminary probes and other activities related to application of measures of criminal coercion, legal proceedings, proceedings in cases of administrative offenses.
The main principles of administrative procedures are legality, proportionality, reliability, possibility to be heard, openness, transparency and clarity, priority of the rights of concerned parties, inadmissibility of bureaucratic formalism, the implementation of administrative proceedings through "single window" principle, equality, protection of confidence, legitimacy of administrative discretion (discretionary power) and research.
The principle of inadmissibility of bureaucratic formalism implies prohibition to administrative bodies to load concerned parties with duties, deny them rights or restrict their rights in other ways only in order to comply with formal rules and requirements.
The law establishes that acts of legislation establishing special administrative procedures should not worsen the situations of individuals and legal entities.
According to the law, administrative bodies carry out administrative proceedings only on issues within their competence set by legislation.
The law spells out the procedure for considering administrative affairs and making decisions on them, the grounds for repealing, modifying or invalidating an administrative act, the principles of its appeal, the rules on the jurisdiction of administrative cases, interagency cooperation, representation, succession, evidence, timing and expenses in administrative proceedings.
