The President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev on January 3 signed a law "On Countering Corruption", which will take effect from the date of publication. The text of the document was released on January 4 in Xalq So’zi newspaper.
The purpose of the law is to regulate relations in countering corruption. The document gives definitions to the concepts of "corruption", "corruption offense" and "conflict of interest".
The basic principles of countering corruption, according to the document is the legality; priority of rights, freedoms and legitimate interests of citizens; openness and transparency, system approach; interaction between the state and civil society; priority measures to prevent corruption and the inevitability of punishment.
The law refers to the main vectors of the government policy in countering corruption:
- raising legal awareness and legal culture of people, formation of social intolerance to corruption;
- implementation of measures to prevent corruption in all areas;
- timely detection and suppression of corruption offenses, elimination of their consequences, causes and conditions that contribute to them, as well as ensuring the principle of inevitability of punishment for corruption offenses.
The document describes measures to prevent in government affairs. These include: ensuring transparency and accountability of government bodies, parliamentary and public control, implementation of evaluation systems of executives, as well as competitive selection system, and promotion on the basis of openness and impartiality. The legal status of government employees shall be defined, their social protection, financial support and promotion shall be guaranteed.
Among the anti-corruption measures are the elimination of administrative and bureaucratic barriers, simplification and improvement of the efficiency of registration and licensing procedures, optimization of control and supervisory functions of state agencies and introduction of distance interaction.
List of anti-corruption administrative measures includes their detailed regulation, simplification and the avoidance of bureaucratic formalism.
The law requires the employees of government agencies to notify their supervisor or law enforcement authorities of all cases of offers to commit corruption offenses, as well as any such facts known to them committed by other employees. Failure to comply with these duties entails liability in accordance with the law.
Persons reporting information about corruption offenses shall be protected by the state, their prosecution shall incur liability in accordance with law. These rules, however, do not apply to persons who reported false information.
Law separate article stipulates that everyone has the right of access to information on the organization and functioning of the government bodies, decision-making processes relating to that person or group of persons. State bodies, self- government bodies and organizations provide information to mass media of the events, facts and processes related to corruption, that may have public interest.
It is noted that if an international treaty of Uzbekistan stipulates other rules than those stipulated by the law on countering corruption, the international treaty shall prevail.
