On August 8, 2005 the President of Uzbekistan signed the Decree ?On Transferring to Courts the Right to Issue Sanctions for Arrest?.

According to the Decree:

- 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.

The new Decree of the President of Uzbekistan is a component and logic continuation of a purposeful policy on realization of stage-by-stage deep transformations in judicial-legal system.

Thus, 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.

In recent years, considerable work has been done in this direction. 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. Besides, preliminary investigation period has been legally reduced from two years to one year, while in 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.

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.

As a whole, the transfer of the right to issue sanctions for arrest to courts specified by the present Decree, will allow to considerably improve the effectiveness of the protection of the constitutional rights of citizens for freedom and personal inviolability.

This decision will be implemented on the stage-by-stage bases after the introduction of corresponding amendments and addenda to the Criminal-Procedural and Criminal-Executive Codes and other Laws of the Republic of Uzbekistan; examination of foreign experience in this area, development of the organizational-judicial and procedural mechanisms, proper training and re-training of the personnel of the judicial and law-enforcement bodies as well as other preparatory measures.

Tashkent, August 9, 2005