The provision of the efficient protection of human constitutional rights and freedoms, above all the right for protection from unfounded criminal prosecution and interference in one?s private life, personal immunity as well as the right for fair trial is the most important tasks of the ongoing judicial reform in Uzbekistan.

In recent years, considerable work has been done to ensure the lawfulness in the work of law-enforcement agencies, strengthen the authority of the judicial power as of crucial guarantee for the effective protection of human rights, provision of the genuine independence of courts, strengthening their role in building democratic lawful state and strong civil society.

The specialization of courts into criminal, civil and economic ones have been legally set. This has provided the quality of court trials, strengthened the guarantees for the protection of the rights and freedoms of citizens. Appellate order has been introduced, which serves as an important guarantee for timely correction of court mistakes, barring delays in legal procedures. Cassation system has been reformed: citizens have been enabled to personally and immediately protect their rights through cassation when they disagree with a court decision. Legal mechanisms that ensure the equality of rights of the Defense and Prosecution during court hearing and the realization of the competition principle have been created.

Preliminary investigation period has been legally reduced from two years to one year while custody ? from one and a half year to nine months, and in exceptional cases - to one year. The extent of the application of this kind of preventive punishment has also been cut down.

These measures on the liberalization of the judiciary, law-enforcement practices have facilitated the efficacy and quality of pretrial investigations, administration of justice, expansion of procedural guarantees of the rights of court trial participants.

As the evidence of the ongoing liberalization of pretrial investigation, the application of such kind of preventive punishment as taking into custody has for the past 4 years decreased by two times.

The most important task of the further liberalization of the judicial system is expansion of court powers on efficiently protecting the rights of citizens during pretrial investigation stage, and, above all, the transfer from the Office of Public Prosecutor to Courts the right to issue sanctions for arrest.

This measure will allow to considerably improve the effectiveness of the protection of the constitutional rights of citizens for freedom and personal inviolability. It fully conforms with the Constitution of the Republic of Uzbekistan, universally recognized principles and norms of international law, which establishes that the human rights and freedoms are indivisible and no one has any right to deprive of or limit them.

At the same time, the transfer of the right to issue sanctions for arrest to courts must be implemented gradually upon deep elaboration and introduction of certain amendments and addenda to Criminal-Procedural and Criminal-Executive Codes of the Republic of Uzbekistan and other judicial acts, examination of foreign experience in this area, development of the organizational-judicial, procedural mechanisms of administering by courts of their right of sanctioning arrests, proper training and re-training of the personnel of the judicial and law-enforcement bodies as well as other preparatory measures.

With the view of the further liberalization of the judicial-legal system, provision of the stage-by-stage and gradual transfer to the courts of the right to deliver sanctions on the application of the measures of judicial measures connected with the restriction of the constitutional rights and freedoms of the person, and in accordance with the clauses 19, 25 and 44 of the Constitution of the Republic of Uzbekistan, establishing the rights of citizens for judicial protection:

1. The right to issue sanctions for arrest of persons suspected or accused of the perpetration of crimes shall be transferred to courts? jurisdiction, as of January 1st, 2008.

Taking into custody shall be carried out in exceptional cases when the application of other preventive punishment measures established by the law appears to be inefficient, and only by the decision of criminal or military court in accordance with their competence.

2. The Ministry of Justice, the Supreme Court, the Office of Public Prosecutor, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, National Security Service of the Republic of Uzbekistan shall in three month period prepare proposals to introduce amendments and addenda to the Criminal-Procedural and Criminal-Executive Codes of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Laws of the Republic of Uzbekistan \"On courts\", \"On Office of Public Prosecutor\" regulating the order and procedure of taking into custody, prolongating the custody, and also establishing additional guarantees for the provision of the Constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens and their inviolability at a pre-trial stage. Thus, according to paragraph 1 of this Decree, not only laws and amendments are subject to revision, but also norms and regulations stipulated in departmental legal acts.

3. The Supreme Court, Ministries of Finance, Economy, Justice, Internal Affairs, the Office of Public Prosecutor, National Security Service of the Republic of Uzbekistan and the Supreme Judge Selection and Recommendation Qualifying Commission under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, in view of the transfer of powers to issue sanctions for arrest, shall in two month period prepare proposals on the improvement of the system of organizational-personnel provision of courts of general jurisdiction.

4. The Ministries of Justice, Internal Affairs, the Supreme Court, the Office of Public Prosecutor, National Security Service of the Republic of Uzbekistan shall develop and realize a complex of measures on the training and retraining of judges and employees of the Office of Public Prosecutor, Investigative Divisions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and National Security Service in connection with the introduction of the new order of taking into custody by court decision.

5. The present Decree shall be introduced for consideration to Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

6. The control over the implementation of the present Decree shall be assigned to the State Adviser of the President of Republic Uzbekistan T.Hudaybergenov.

PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN I.KARIMOV