State testing center lost the case in court, but will justice be restored for the applicant?

On September 20, 2018, an interesting case was heard in the Yunusabad administrative court. The plaintiff Sarvinoz Ibragimova filed a lawsuit against officials of the State testing center (STC). The hearings were chaired by the judge S. Kuchkorov.

According to S. Ibragimova, on August 1, 2018, she took the state exam for admission to the Bukhara State Medical Institute. The exam was held at the Semurg sports complex in Bukhara.

After the start of the exam, the pen given to S. Ibragimova stopped writing. The girl appealed to the center employee in order to exchange the pen. However, the employee instead of replacing the pen tried to fix it. Some time was lost, which led to the nervousness of the entrant. In addition, the employee who attended the exam announced that the exam time had run out and demanded that the exam sheets should be submitted, despite the fact that the allotted 3 hours had not yet passed. S. Ibragimova passed the test sheet a little later.

The examining staff wrote an act stating that the exam sheet was submitted late and told the applicant that her answers would not be accepted. The arguments of S. Ibragimova were not taken into account.

The applicant sent an appeal to the State testing center, referring to the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers "On the procedure for improving admission to higher educational institutions". The request was accompanied by the data of the video surveillance exam. According to the video, the work of S. Ibragimova was commissioned at 6:00:48, with a delay of 48 seconds. According to the applicant, she spent these seconds to collect her things and go to the controller.

S. Ibragimova pointed out that the Provision did not determine what second was the last on the exam, and no signal was provided that indicated the end of the exam. However, the State testing center did not take these arguments into account.

Based on the facts, S. Ibragimova filed a lawsuit to recognize the actions of the STC employees to exclude her results from being considered illegal and require the defendant to consider them.

The STC side did not agree with the claims, stating that the applicant violated clause 52 of the Regulation, approved by the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers "On the procedure for improving admission to higher educational institutions." The respondent stated that the test results were submitted later than the established time and noted that the controllers acted correctly and asked the court not to satisfy the claim.

The court, having thoroughly studied this case, noted that according to the 6th paragraph of the Provision, 3 hours of time are given to answer 90 test questions. The item 52 states that those applicants who refuse to submit the results after the allotted time are subject to suspension.

The video presented to the court confirmed the fact of the breakdown of S. Ibragimova’s pen during the exam. It was also recorded that the inspectors announced the end of the time allotted earlier and thus impeded the plaintiff.

The court, taking into account these facts, admitted that Sarvinoz Ibragimova’s legal rights had been violated. Her claim was satisfied, and the actions of STC employees who had suspended the results of her test were considered illegal. The court assigned an obligation to the State testing center to review the test result of S. Ibragimova.

The STC filed a cassation appeal to the Tashkent city administrative court, but it was not taken into account, and the court’s decision remained unchanged.

Will this decision be executed? Will the testing center review the applicant's test result? At present, these questions remain unanswered.