Parliament of Uzbekistan: structure, status, powers and speaker

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:39

Like any other state, Uzbekistan, a small Central Asian republic, also has a parliament. The principles of its formation are quite curious, and after reading the article, you can be convinced of this. And also learn a lot more interesting things about the Oliy Majlis (that's what it is called in Uzbek).

Bicameral Parliament

Once the highest representative body was unicameral and consisted of 250 deputies elected for five years in territorial districts. In February 2002, a nationwide referendum was held in the country, which, with 94% support from the population, approved the introduction of a bicameral parliament in 2004. As stated, this was done to balance both regional and national interests in the Uzbek parliament. The upper house is the Senate, the lower house is the Legislative Assembly. The term of office of both has not changed and is five years.

Senate

According to the Constitution of the country, 100 senators are elected on a territorial basis: six people from each of 12regions of Uzbekistan, as well as from the city of Tashkent and the only autonomy in the republic, Karakalpakstan. The president personally appoints the remaining 16 senators. At the same time, honorary positions are often occupied not by politicians, but by figures of science, culture and art, and even especially distinguished leaders in production, as a rule, known throughout the country. If the highest official of the state suddenly retires, he automatically becomes a member of the Senate for the rest of his days.

The chairman is elected once, by secret ballot, for the entire term of office of the upper house and can be removed from office if at least two-thirds of the Senate suddenly vote for it. In fact, he is the second person in the state, since it is the chairman who is entrusted with the powers of the President of Uzbekistan, if for some reason he cannot perform his functions.

Nigmatulla Tulkinovich Yuldashev, the former Minister of Justice of Uzbekistan, has been chairman for four years now. By the way, it was he who, after the death of Islam Karimov, the first president of the country, acted as president for several days in September 2016.

Add that, by law, a member of the Senate cannot be less than twenty-five years old. At the same time, he must permanently reside in the country for at least the last five years.

Legislative Assembly

The lower house of the Parliament of Uzbekistan includes 150 deputies. Interestingly, only 135 of them are elected on a multi-party basis byterritorial single-mandate constituencies, and 15 are representatives of the Ecological Movement, whose motto "He althy environment - a he althy person" would be nice to spread in our country. The parliamentary legislator must also be over twenty-five years of age, not a member of the military or an employee of the National Security Service (SNB). In addition, he must not have an outstanding or unexpunged criminal record.

Currently, five parties are represented in the lower house of the Parliament of the Republic of Uzbekistan: the already mentioned "environmentalists" (15 seats), the liberal democrats (52), the Milliy Tiklanish party (36), the People's Democrats (27) and the party "Adolat" (20). The current president of the country, Shavkat Miromonovich Mirziyoyev, was nominated to this post in 2016 by the Liberal Democratic Party. Nevertheless, it holds only about a third of the seats in the Legislative Assembly, and there is no need to talk about the constitutional majority of one party here.

The main person of the Legislative Assembly and, accordingly, the speaker of the Parliament of Uzbekistan since January 2015 is Nurdinjon Muidinkhanovich Ismoilov.

Status and main functions of Parliament

Parliament of Uzbekistan Oliy Majlis - the Supreme Assembly of the country, the national representative body. Its functions and powers are carried out taking into account the principle of separation of powers, within the framework of the current Constitution of Uzbekistan. The main functions of Parliament are legislative and control.

Basicpowers

In the joint jurisdiction of the Senate and the Legislative Assembly are the introduction of legislative initiatives, including the Constitution of the country, issues of domestic and foreign policy, approval of the state budget.

In addition, only senators can elect members of the Constitutional and Supreme Courts, appoint or remove the Prosecutor General, the Chairman of the National Security Council and the Chairman of the Board of the Central Bank of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

The jurisdiction of the Legislative Assembly are mainly procedural and socio-economic issues. Thus, the Senate is the upper house not only in name, but also in significance and authority.

Speaker

Chairman of the Parliament of Uzbekistan Nurdinjon Ismoilov represents the People's Democratic Party. Prior to his election to this post, he was an adviser to the President on interaction with the Oliy Majlis. He is 60 years old, he is from Namangan region, he has the title of candidate of legal sciences. Each of the five vice-speakers represents one of the factions in the Parliament.

The Future of Parliament

The main problem of the development of parliamentarism in Uzbekistan, as in other states where a virtually totalitarian regime is hidden behind a screen of democracy, is, firstly, the absence of a real principle of electivity of its composition, when each deputy must represent the interests of a particular group citizens, and secondly, the lack of freedom of each of the members of parliament in the adoption of important laws or the appointment of the highest officials of the republic. In other words,almost all key decisions are made by a narrow circle of people close to the president of the country, and parliamentarians only formally confirm them, performing a decorative function. This was the case under Karimov, and little has changed under the current leadership.

On December 28, 2018 President Mirziyoyev delivered a message to the Parliament of Uzbekistan. Shavkat Miromonovich, among other things, formally proposed to slightly expand the functions of the Oliy Majlis. It is proposed, for example, that the deputies consider and approve (or reject, which is extremely unlikely) the candidacy of not only the prime minister, but all members of the cabinet. Another change should be the creation of a separate State Budget Department under the Parliament. According to the president's plan, it should form and control the execution of the budget at a much more highly professional level than it is now. Mirziyoyev invited the leaders of both chambers to discuss these innovations with the deputies.

At the end of this year, regular elections to the Oliy Majlis will be held. The deputies will be elected again for five years, and we can sincerely wish the people who are not alien to us that among the parliamentarians there would be as many as possible those who came there not to "serve a number", but to truly care for the interests of their citizens.