The Government of Uzbekistan has adopted an Action Plan to comply with the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The plan, which was developed in close cooperation with UNDP, OSCE, Embassies of USA and EU member states in Uzbekistan and also international NGOs, incorporates the recommendations of the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Theo van Boven.

The Action Plan encompasses a number of important measures to further liberalize the court-judicial system, which is considered as one of the main direction of the democratization process in society.

In particular, the Action Plan envisages to draft ?Law on holding suspects and defendants accused of committing crimes? that would allow to define legal status of such persons, their rights and obligations; the order and conditions of holding them in places of preliminary detention; regulations of organizing control, including public one, over observance of guarantees of rights and freedoms of those under detention.

It will also scrutinize the ill-cases of torture and other types of mistreatment in the process of preliminary investigation, actual investigation and serving term.

Improving the system of professional training of lawyers with the aim of providing qualified legal assistance to detainees is also one of the objectives.

The Plan foresees to commission appropriate bodies to study the international experience on transfer of penitentiary system under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice. In addition, it will deliberate the adoption of statement pursuant to Article 22 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment, on recognizing the right of Committee against Torture to receive and consider submissions of individuals whose rights under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment have allegedly been violated.

Since 2001, the Government of Uzbekistan is pursuing widespread reforms of its court-judicial system, which became the logical continuation of general process of judicial reforms and liberalization of the criminal law. The law on changes and amendments to the Criminal, Criminal Procedural Codes and Code on administrative liability in connection with liberalization of criminal punishment, adopted in August 2001 made important changes to the system of criminal law and court practice.

Substantial reforms are observed in court practice on imposing punishments. For example, if the share of convicted individuals in the from of imprisonment was 47,2 % in year 2000, this figure shrank down to 34,7% in 2003 and 65,3 % of convictions were in the form other than imprisonment.

Arrest and detention are excluded as a punishment for many types of crimes. Annual amnesties give opportunity to tens of thousand of citizens to return to normal life. Since 1997 nearly 200,000 persons benefited from amnesties. As a result of the amnesties and other efforts to liberalize the penitentiary system the number of detainees decreased by twice in 2003 in comparison with 2000.

Judicial reforms have included the reform of penitentiary system of the country. International community now has unprecedented access to penitentiary system of Uzbekistan. A number of international governmental and non-governmental organizations, as well as diplomatic corps in Uzbekistan, including ICRC, Freedom House, OSCE, embassies of USA and EU member states, and also NGOs and representatives of foreign mass media, have undertaken numerous visits to several penitentiaries of the country. For instance, ICRC made 5 spot visits to penitentiaries in 2001, in 2003 this figure exceeded 50.

Mitigating the legislation also covered issues of the death penalty. In particular, the number of crimes punishable by death penalty has decreased in the Criminal Code. In 1991 death penalty has been envisaged in 35 articles of the Criminal Code. Currently, the death penalty is envisaged in cases of two types of crimes: premeditated murder under aggravated circumstances and terrorism.