Uzbekistan, Tashkent, Feb. 18 /. Trend D.Azizov /
Today the lowest number of prisoners in the world is observed in Uzbekistan, which has 166 people for every 100,000 of population, chairman of Uzbek Supreme Court Buritosh Mustafayev said in an interview with The People's Word newspaper.
In Russia, the figure reaches 611 and in the U.S. 738 people.
Mustafayev said, during the past period the possibilities of applying a penalty instead of an arrest and imprisonment has been greatly expanded for crimes in the economic area. In addition, the confiscation of property was excluded from the system of criminal penalties as a kind of punishment contrary to the principle of humanity.
Classification of crimes was radically revised in the law adopted upon the initiative of the Head of State in 2001 'On amendments and additions to the Criminal Code, Criminal Procedure Code and the Code of Administrative Responsibility'.
As a result, nearly 75 per cent of serious and very serious crimes were transferred to the category not representing a great danger to society and category of less serious offenses.
In addition, in connection with the introduction of the rules on not sentencing the convicted with deprivation of liberty in the case of their full refund of material damage to the Special Part of the Criminal Code, the number that were sentenced to prison decreased by more than half in 2012 compared to 2000. This means around 23.000 people repairing damage to the tune of over 246 billion soums, were not sentenced by imprisonment, the interview said.
Mustafayev said decisions of some regional authorities were cancelled by civil courts.
"In 2011, 56 decisions of governors on adoption (adoption order) were cancelled, while 43 such decisions were cancelled in the first nine months of 2012. Moreover, in 2011, the civil courts abolished 123 decisions of governors on ownership of households and 159 in 2012, "chairman of the Supreme Court said.
He also said that in 2011 civil courts reviewed 276 cases on the violation of the rights of entrepreneurs.
"Of these, 246 claims were satisfied with the claims and 66 million soums of material and 15 million soums of moral damages were collected from defendants. Last year 506 cases were considered of which claims were granted on 491 cases. Some 49 million soums of material and 31 million soums of moral damages were collected in favour of entrepreneurs.
Mustafayev noted that in 2012, on the initiative of the president, decrees were adopted taking the quality of the reforms in the judicial sphere to a new level. In particular, the decree 'On measures for further improvement of courts' prescribed tasks related to further improvement of the system of selection of judicial personnel.
In particular, the need for a fundamental change in the system of forming human resources reserves was deemed necessary. This means candidates for judges must be selected from among well-trained, highly qualified personnel who have considerable experience, impeccable reputation and sufficient professional experience, especially in law enforcement agencies.