The Legislative Chamber at a meeting on Monday unanimously decided to extend the period for nationwide discussion of the draft amendments and addenda to the Constitution of Uzbekistan until July 15, i.e. for 10 days. The discussion was supposed to end on July 4th.
The MPs also agreed to exclude from the draft amendments to the Articles 70, 71, 72, 74 and 75 of the Constitution relating to the autonomous status of Karakalpakstan, i.e. these articles in the current Constitution will be left unchanged. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev spoke about the need for this during a visit to Nukus, where mass demonstrations took place at the end of last week.
Opening the meeting, Nurdinjon Ismoilov, speaker of the Legislative Chamber, repeated the phrase that had been voiced by the president before, and earlier by government bodies: “In some cases, there is a misinterpretation of the amendments due to a misunderstanding of their essence. In particular, this concerns the articles [on the status of Karakalpakstan].”
Jahongir Shirinov, Chairman of the Chamber Committee on Combating Corruption and Judicial and Legal Reforms, a member of Milliy Tiklanish Party, in his remarks listed the number of meetings held with the public and also noted that there were cases of misunderstanding of the proposed amendments.
The deputies voted for the extension of the discussion period by 10 days and the exclusion of articles on the status of Karakalpakstan from the amendments unanimously.
