The Election Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan, adopted at the initiative of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and recently entered into force, serves as a solid legal basis in this regard.

The Election Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan, adopted at the initiative of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and recently entered into force, serves as a solid legal basis in this regard.

This important initiative of the head of our state was expressed in the Address to the Oliy Majlis dated December 22, 2017.

"I would also like to dwell on the electoral law, which is of great importance in our political life," the petition states. - Six laws and a number of by-laws adopted in this regard, unfortunately, have not yet been consolidated into a single document. Therefore, it is necessary to develop and adopt a single Election Code that meets international norms and standards. Also, it is necessary to start developing a program of activities to prepare for the elections to the representative bodies of the authorities in 2019. In the program, it is necessary to pay special attention to the introduction of a new, advanced practice, which ensures that this political process takes place in the spirit of transparency."

Today there are about two hundred countries in the world. However, such an excellent Code was developed on the basis of international norms and standards, and its draft was discussed in detail by the general public, so to speak, by international experts who "break their teeth" in terms of election law, and it was adopted in a thorough, concise and comprehensive form in accordance with universally recognized international election standards. Only a few countries have been able to create it.

Naturally, the development and adoption of such a comprehensive, thorough, democratic spirit code with the participation of international experts, in which human rights are clearly expressed in all aspects, is not something that happens overnight. For this, first of all, great wisdom, philanthropy, patriotism, great loyalty to the ideas of modern democracy and a strong political will are required. At the same time, it is important that the socio-political, economic, legal, spiritual-educational, democratic environment and principles are firmly established in the country. After all, a free and open electoral system is one of the most necessary factors of a legal democratic state and a strong civil society. Because through elections, citizens directly participate in the management of the state and society.

The adoption and implementation of the Election Code was a practical result of the large-scale reforms being carried out in our country, and it was a big step towards further strengthening and improvement of our national election legislation, which was formed in the years of independence, and our nearly 30-year experience in conducting democratic elections.

The task of developing the draft of the Electoral Code aimed at improving the mechanisms for the implementation of citizens' electoral rights, ensuring its implementation, the President's Strategy of Actions on the five priority directions of the development of the Republic of Uzbekistan in 2017-2021, the State Program "The Year of Support for Active Entrepreneurship, Innovative Ideas and Technologies" was clearly defined in the Decree on approval. According to the program, under the leadership of the chairman of the Central Election Commission, a working group was formed with the participation of representatives of the Chambers of the Oliy Majlis, the Ministry of Justice, political parties and other public organizations, scientists, experts.

During the preparation of the draft code, the working group carefully studied the experience of more than 20 countries, including France, the Netherlands, Canada, Italy, Sweden, Belgium, Poland, Albania, Belarus, Azerbaijan, and Turkey, as well as international standards in this field. More than 10 international documents related to the election were thoroughly analyzed, and their main ideas and standards were deeply integrated into the project norms. These include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and OSCE documents on humanitarian criteria.

On July 19, 2018, the Chambers of the Oliy Majlis together with the Central Election Commission approved the Practical Action Plan ("Roadmap") in order to organize a public discussion of the draft code. According to it, the project underwent five types of discussion and examination.

In particular, a public discussion was organized on social networks. For this purpose, the draft of the Electoral Code was put up for public discussion on the portal for the discussion of draft normative legal documents of the Republic of Uzbekistan (www.regulation.gov.uz) and posted on the official website of the Central Election Commission (www.elections.uz) in Uzbek and Russian languages. In connection with the project, mass media, in particular, newspapers and magazines, radio and television, voters, scientists, deputies, experts on social networks

, hundreds of speeches were made by activists of political parties and journalists.

Another direction established by the working group was related to receiving feedback from practitioners directly on the draft code. In other words, the project was thoroughly discussed with the participation of the heads of regional, district and city election commissions, their members, deputies and experts of the local Councils of People's Deputies.

Regarding the Electoral Code draft

About 300 events were held.

More than 30 thousand people participated in them.

In total, more than 450 proposals were received.

In particular, the roundtable discussion organized by the Central Election Commission in cooperation with the Council of People's Deputies of the Tashkent region in the city of Almalyk was full of heated debates. Representatives of deputies, senators, Independent Institute for Monitoring the Formation of Civil Society, Ministry of Justice, political parties, Academy of Public Administration under the President, Institute of Strategic and Interregional Studies, Tashkent State Law University, members of the Central Election Commission of the Republic of Uzbekistan, experienced experts in the field of electoral law, experts, scientists and practitioners participated.

In addition, roundtable discussions on the draft code, which took place in the "Qolba", "Qizilqum", "Oqtom" neighborhoods of Forish district, and the district medical association, were held in a lively manner.

It can be seen that the role of political parties has increased, voter activity has increased, civil society institutions, mass media, and local and international observers participating in the election process have expanded their powers to conduct public control and monitoring.

The draft code was submitted to international organizations for independent international expertise, which formed the fifth direction of the discussion. In this regard, the recommendations of the Bureau of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, as well as relevant conclusions and opinions were received from the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, the Executive Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

It was announced at the international conference on "Improvement of electoral law and democratic elections: Uzbekistan's experience and international practice" organized by the Central Election Commission in Bukhara on November 16-17 last year in cooperation with the coordinator of OSCE projects in Uzbekistan and the regional representative office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation for Central Asia. suggestions were also helpful. In it, the UN election experts and experts of the Venice Commission gave a high assessment of the work being done on the preparation and adoption of the Electoral Code project in our country and the fact that the unified electronic voter list is being put into practice in the upcoming elections.

It is worth noting that at the Bukhara conference, the actual issues of using modern information and communication technologies in the election processes were discussed in detail. It includes the International Expert Center on the Electoral System (Netherlands), the Secretariat of the World Association of Electoral Bodies (South Korea), the Central Election Commission of the Kyrgyz Republic for holding elections and referendums, the Ministries of Internal Affairs, Development of Information Technologies and Communications of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Land Resources, Geodesy, Cartography and representatives of the state cadastre state committee, the State Personalization Center took part.

The speakers spoke about the specific aspects of introducing modern information and communication technologies to the election process, the issues of modernization of the technical base used in holding this important political event, and shared their work experience.

It is known that the President's decision "On measures to introduce modern information and communication technologies into the election process" adopted on October 4, 2018 is an important factor in creating the legal basis for the introduction of the information system and the unified electronic list of voters into the national election system. This information system was tested in December 2017 in the city of Tashkent during the election of district councils of people's deputies as a legal experiment, and was highly evaluated by local and foreign experts. Its advantage is that this system provides a convenient opportunity to ensure the principle of "one voter - one vote", to prevent one voter from being included in several lists, to determine the total number of voters living abroad, electoral districts and precincts. . Norms governing the use of a single electronic list have been consolidated in the recently adopted Election Code. In this sense, stand before us

The new elections will be held in a completely new format, not only from the point of view of legislation, but also from a technical and technological point of view.

As part of the discussions, the joint conclusion of the Venice Commission and the Bureau of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on the draft Election Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan and recommendations on the foreign practice of the development of electoral legislation were presented.

Such experts, Tatyana Hilsher-Bogusevich and Pere Vilovanova Trias, based on the joint conclusion of the Venice Commission and the Bureau of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, shared their recommendations on the discussion of the draft Election Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan. Speaking at the international conference, Nikolai Levichev, member of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation, Gael Martin Minkaleff, adviser on legal issues of the Council of the Venice Commission, noted that the national election legislation of Uzbekistan is constantly improving, and the draft Electoral Code prepared on the basis of proposals and recommendations of relevant international organizations, elections, democracy, transparency, equality stated that it will serve to ensure that it will be held on the basis of such important principles as

At the conference, specialists in the field of our country and foreign experts expressed their opinions on the issues of law enforcement practice, election campaign financing, inter-party competition, and expanding the participation of citizens in state and community management.

During the discussion of the draft code, hundreds of proposals were received from citizens, NGOs and other institutions of civil society, as well as research institutes and local Councils of People's Deputies. It must be said that they were thoroughly studied by the Working Group and the experts of the Institute of Legislative Problems and Parliamentary Research under the Oliy Majlis.

So, what are the advantages of the Electoral Code adopted after such extensive discussions?

Adopted by the Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis and approved by the Senate, this Election Code, consisting of 18 chapters and 103 articles, was signed by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev on June 25 of this year and put into effect. In this, first of all, a number of existing laws and regulations related to elections were compiled into a single document. In the end, with the norms of the law, the possibility of unconditional observance of the electoral rights of citizens during the election process, the creation of necessary conditions for the free participation of voters, and the creation of equal conditions for the political parties and candidates who nominate candidates for deputy and president during the election campaign were further strengthened.

In connection with the entry into force of the Election Code, about 30 laws and subsequent amendments and additions to the laws, as well as by-laws, became invalid. These include the laws "On the election of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan", "On the election to the Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan", "On the election to the regional, district and city councils of people's deputies", "On the Central Election Commission of the Republic of Uzbekistan", "On the guarantees of citizens' electoral rights". . It is worth saying that almost the same norms regarding the voting rights of citizens were repeated in all of them. It is self-evident that the large number of electoral laws created certain difficulties in their application.

In addition, norms restricting the participation in elections of persons who have committed minor crimes with low social risk have been removed. The institution of allocating a quota for representatives of the Ecological Movement of Uzbekistan for the seats of deputies in the Legislative Chamber has been canceled, while the existing seats of deputies in the Legislative Chamber (150 seats) have been preserved. The procedure for nominating candidates for district (city) councils of people's deputies by self-government bodies of citizens has ended. Now, the creation of a single electronic list of voters is regulated by the Code. In the process of collecting signatures by political parties, voters will be able to sign in support of one or more candidates or parties.

The code also introduced a number of new procedural rules, that is, directly related to election processes. In particular, immediate placement of a copy of the vote counting protocol at the polling station, actions taken by the precinct election commission after the end of voting (counting votes, drawing up a report, etc.), submission of proposals by citizens' self-government bodies, public associations regarding candidates for the membership of the precinct election commission the procedure was determined. To the Legislative Chamber, local Councils

if the election is held simultaneously, single polling stations will be established. The regulation on the procedure for the election of members of the Senate of the Oliy Majlis, previously approved by the decision of the Central Election Commission, was canceled and the election of the members of the Senate was introduced in accordance with the Election Code.

This year is the year of elections in our country. That is, elections will be held for the Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan, the Dzhokorgi Council of the Republic of Karakalpakstan, the Councils of people's deputies of regions and districts (cities). Elections are always a special test. For the country, electorate and voters. Because, as the head of our state noted, "First of all, our worldview, political and legal culture, and our civic position will be revealed once again during the election process." New elections will be held for the first time based on the Election Code. Therefore, intensive preparations for the upcoming elections have been started by the Central Election Commission.

It was developed at the initiative of the President and "Human interests are above all else!" There is no doubt that the Electoral Code, which embodies the life-giving democratic idea of As the Code is an important factor in conducting our elections on the basis of democratic principles such as openness, transparency, truthfulness, impartiality, it creates wide opportunities and conveniences for voters and elected officials.

Mirza-Ulug'bek ABDUSALOMOV,

Republic of Uzbekistan

Chairman of the Central Election Commission

("People's Word" newspaper, July 23, 2019)