Uzbek Senate adopts the Law “On Introducing changes and amendments to certain legislative acts of the Republic of Uzbekistan in connection with abolition of capital punishment"

The Senate of the Parliament of Uzbekistan during its tenth plenary session held on 29-30 June adopted the Law “On introducing changes and amendments to some legislative acts of the Republic of Uzbekistan in connection with abolition of capital punishment".

The law introduces certain changes and amendments to the Criminal, Criminal Procedural and Criminal-Executive Codes of the Republic of Uzbekistan which replace the capital punishment with life imprisonment and long-term imprisonment.

The new law specifies that life imprisonment and long-term imprisonment (over 20 years but not more than 25 years) are only to be applied for deliberate murder under aggravating circumstances and terrorism.

Long-term imprisonment and life imprisonment cannot be applied to women, juveniles, and men over 60 years.

A person convicted to lifetime imprisonment can submit appeal for pardon after de facto completion of 25 years of the imposed sentence, and person sentenced to long prison term after de facto completion of 20 years of the imposed sentence.

But the specified timeframe to submit appeal for pardon can be reduced by 5 years for both categories in cases where a convict during the period of imprisonment demonstrates a substantial improvement, does not receive disciplinary punishment for violating the established rules, maintains conscientious attitude towards work and education, actively participates in conducting correctional education measures.

The adopted law is fully in line with implementation of the Presidential Decree issued on 1 August 2005 on abolishing death penalty, as of 1 January 2008, as a form of punishment in the Republic of Uzbekistan and replacing it by penalties in the form of a life imprisonment or a long term prison.

It should be noted that Uzbekistan has been carrying out cardinal reforms in its legal and judicial spheres aimed at gradual liberalization of its penal system, in particular, by steady reduction of the application of the death penalty.
The number of crimes for the commitment of which the death penalty can be imposed has been gradually decreased.

In 1994 Uzbekistan’s Criminal Code specified 13 types of crime for the commitment of which death penalty was imposed. In 1998 the number of the types of crimes punishable by death penalty reduced to 8 and 4 in 2001. Following the implementation of a set of measures to liberalize the criminal law, since 2003 a provision for the death penalty remained for the commission of only two crimes — terrorism and premeditated murder under aggravating circumstances. It is worth noting that for the last few years the death penalty has not been imposed as a form of criminal punishment.