Tashkent hosted an international conference on the topic “Constitutional reforms: the role and status of civil society institutions” with the participation of national and foreign experts, international organizations.
It was noted at the conference that in recent years the number of NGOs has increased by 22%, including about 200 large republican NGOs that have started their activities. Today, these civil institutions play an important role in ensuring and protecting human dignity, rights and freedoms, improving the legal culture of the population and shaping a culture of tolerance and human rights in society. The amount of funds allocated from the State budget to support the activities and implementation of socially and socially significant projects of NGOs (subsidies, social orders and grants) has increased by more than five times.
Natalia Borzhelli, Vice-President of the International Center for Non-Commercial Law (ICNL) for Eurasian Countries, who participated in the forum, commented on the results of the conference:
- This is one of the first significant steps to discuss the new version of the country’s Basic Law - the Constitution. It is also very important that representatives of the legislative and executive authorities, as well as NGOs and the international community take part in it. At the conference, during the debate, everyone had the opportunity to speak.
For me, this discussion was very interesting. As part of this event, I met very competent Uzbek experts. The most important thing about the meeting is that it will benefit the national experts and non-profit organizations. Because they will continue to develop a new law, improve the Constitution of the country.
I have no doubt that there is a need for mass discussion with the public, additional meetings with experts and consideration of specific areas in constitutional law that will be part of the new constitution. There is still a lot of work to be done, but this is the first very important step in this work.
Today I shared with the participants international experience, which, from my point of view, has practical application for the modernization and improvement of the Constitution of Uzbekistan. I cited as an example several specific articles in the Constitution of Uzbekistan, which should be reviewed from the point of view of modern needs. Probably more important from the point of view of compliance with the norms of international law, first of all, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
