In line with the Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan "On Regulatory Legal Acts" and the Regulations on the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Uzbekistan, approved by Resolution of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan No. RP-1602 dated 23 August 2011, I order herewith as follows:

1. The Methodology for holding anticorruption review of regulatory legal acts and their drafts shall be approved as per Annex.

2. State registration of this Order shall be performed and the Department of State Registration of Departmental Regulatory Legal Acts shall make an appropriate entry in the State Register of Departmental Regulatory Legal Acts.

3. The Department of Criminal, Administrative and Social Legislation and the Department of Systematization of Legislation and Legal Information shall ensure communication of this departmental regulatory legal act to all interested persons and its publishing in the "Collection of Legislation of the Republic of Uzbekistan".

4. The Department of Criminal, Administrative and Social Legislation, the Department of Economic Legislation, the Department of State Registration of Departmental Regulatory Legal Acts, and the Department of Systematization of Legislation and Legal Information shall perform the following jointly with the Press Service, the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Karakalpakstan and the Departments of Justice of the regions and Tashkent city:

Organize workshops within one month with participation of representatives of legal services of relevant bodies of State and economic administration, their territorial subdivisions, as well as local government authorities;

Ensure systematic media coverage of summarized information on activities of the justice bodies in the area of anticorruption review.

5. This Order shall enter into force on the date of its official publication.

6. Control over the implementation of this Order shall be entrusted to Deputy Minister A. Usmanov.

In line with the Laws of the Republic of Uzbekistan "On Regulatory Legal Acts"; and "On Countering Corruption"; and the Resolution of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan No. RP 3666 dated 13 April 2018 "On Organizational Measures for Further Improvement of Activity of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Uzbekistan", this Methodology shall define the procedure for holding anticorruption review of draft Laws of the Republic of Uzbekistan; Resolutions of the Chambers of the Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan; and Decrees, Resolutions, Executive Orders of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan; Resolutions of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan; Decisions of the local government bodies; regulatory legal acts of the ministries, State committees and agencies (hereinafter – the drafts); as well as existing regulatory legal acts and international treaties of the Republic of Uzbekistan with a view to identifying corruptogenic factors in their content that may contribute to corrupt practices in the law administration process:

1. The following basic concepts shall be applied in this Methodology:

Regulatory legal act — an official document adopted in accordance with the Law "On Regulatory Legal Acts" aimed at establishing, changing or repealing legal norms as generally binding state rules and regulations;

Legal review — Verification of the drafts conformity with the Constitution and the laws of the Republic of Uzbekistan; other acts of legislation having higher legal force; goals and objectives of the ongoing reforms in the country; rules of legislative technique; as well as validity and feasibility of the reference rules application;

Corruptogenic factors — Rules in the drafts that set unreasonably wide discretionary limits for the enforcer or the possibility of unreasonably applying exceptions to general rules, containing vague, difficult and/or burdensome requirements for individuals and entities, as well as gaps in legal regulation;

Legal service — Independent structural subdivision or a position created or mandatorily introduced for the purpose of legal support of the activity of a State authority and an organization in line with norms and criteria determined by legislation;

Justice authorities — Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Uzbekistan; Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Karakalpakstan; Departments of Justice of the regions and Tashkent city; the Justice Divisions of districts (cities).

2. Anticorruption review shall be conducted as part of the legal review.

Anticorruption review shall be conducted with the aim of preventing the emergence of corruptogenic factors in the projects, their identification and subsequent elimination.

3. The objectives of the anticorruption review shall be as follows:

identification of corruptogenic factors in the drafts that create the possibility of committing corruption offences;

general assessment of the consequences of the draft adoption in terms of the possibility of committing corruption offences;

forecasting the possibility that risks of a corruption nature may arise in the process of applying regulatory legal acts;

development of recommendations and adoption of measures aimed at eliminating corruptogenic factors identified in the drafts.

4. Anticorruption review shall be based on the following fundamental principles:

legitimacy — Compliance of the content of the draft norms with higher legal force regulations;

enforceability — Exclusion of norms that may cause contradictory interpretation and application of provisions of regulatory legal acts;

transparency and sustainability of norms — Presentation of the draft text in a concise, simple and clear language. Terms and definitions used in the draft shall be applied uniformly according to their meaning adopted in the legislation, which excludes the possibility of different interpretations. It shall not be allowed to use forms of colloquial speech, terms in foreign languages in the presence of equivalent words and concepts in the State language, as well as outdated and words and expressions with multiple meanings, figurative comparisons, epithets, metaphoric expressions;

neutrality — Holding an anticorruption review objectively and impartially, on a strictly legislative, theoretical and practical basis, within the limits of the respective specialization, in a comprehensive and complete manner;

independence — Holding an anticorruption review by an independent person. It shall not be allowed making influence on anticorruption reviewer to obtain an opinion in favor of the interested parties.

5. The following shall be considered corruptogenic factors that set unreasonably wide discretionary limits for the enforcer or the possibility of unreasonably applying exceptions to general rules:

a) the breadth of discretionary powers (powers the content of which does not make it possible to determine their limits), which is mainly as follows:

absence or uncertainty of time limits and presence of a possibility to extend or shorten the time limit without sound reasons;

absence of conditions or grounds for making a decision, as well presence of a possibility for State bodies and other authorities or their employees (hereinafter – the bodies) to issue decisions at their discretion, make several types of decisions and determine the manner of their implementation;

allowing the bodies to evaluate at their own discretion the legal fact and independently determine the procedure for individuals and legal entities to perform relevant actions;

providing an opportunity to the body to initiate at its own discretion the legal relations with individuals and legal entities, change or terminate them without appropriate justification;

presence of duplicate powers of the bodies;

b) presence of norms creating possibility of their different and ambiguous interpretation by enforcement officials;

c) unjustified determination of the competence expressed in the dispositive determination of the possibility of actions by the bodies with regard to individuals and legal entities;

d) possibility of selective changes in the scope of rights, i.e. unjustified establishment of exceptions from the general procedure for individuals and legal entities at the discretion of the bodies;

e) excessive freedom of by-laws, characterized by the presence of blanket and reference rules leading to the adoption of by-laws attributable to the competence of another body;

f) adoption of regulations by bodies that do not have the authority to adopt the regulations;

g) granting powers to bodies that do not fall within their competence;

h) establishing in the draft by-laws the norms which, according to the legislation, shall be regulated by a legislative act;

i) waiver of competitive procedures for granting the relevant rights or powers, with the establishment of an out-of-competition procedure for their granting;

j) nonconformity of the norms of the draft regulations with the requirements of the regulations having higher legal force.

6. The following shall be considered corruptogenic factors containing undefined, difficult and/or burdensome requirements to individuals and legal entities:

a) existence of exaggerated claims on the enforcer for the exercise of his or her rights, which are mainly as follows:

setting requirements aimed at restricting the rights and freedoms of individuals and legal entities, the presentation of which is not justified by legislative norms;

imposing obligations on individuals and legal entities, the performance of which is not necessary;

imposing on individuals and legal entities the obligation to submit documents and information not stipulated by the legislation;

presence of obligations to comply with the features (professional, property, social), which do not comply with the acquired right;

b) absence of a clear regulation of the exercise by individuals and legal entities of their rights;

c) use of transitionary, ambiguous notions or absence of a concept, scientific validity and reliability of the applied terms;

d) establishment of advantages for one group of subjects of legal relations, putting others in an unequal, discriminatory position.

e) excessive redundancy of legal regulation of relations, expressed in unconditioned and unjustified regulation of conduct and activities of individuals and legal entities, which may lead to restriction of freedom of participants of public relations.

7. The following shall be considered corruptogenic factors related to legal regulation gaps:

a) absence or incompleteness of administrative procedures, i.e. the absence of a procedure for certain actions by bodies, including:

absence of a body making a decision and complying with a legal requirement;

misregulated actions and powers of the body;

unstructured regulation procedure for the execution of powers;

absence or uncertainty of grounds for the bodies to perform administrative procedures;

absence of the obligation to substantiate the adopted decision;

presence of norms with lacking specific mechanism for their implementation;

b) absence of rules on the liability of bodies, as well as on appealing against their actions (decisions);

c) absence of a reference to the forms and types of monitoring over the bodies' activities;

d) absence of norms providing for disclosure of information (except for information constituting a secret protected by law) on activities of bodies and on the procedure of providing information by them upon requests of individuals and legal entities;

e) absence of an opportunity in the draft content to establish a body responsible for implementation of relevant actions;

f) unjustified postponement of entry into force of the regulatory legal act;

g) absence of duties assigned to enforcement bodies in the presence of rights, or presence of duties in the absence of rights;

h) filling of legislative gaps by means of by-laws in the absence of appropriate delegation.

7¹. Taking into account the specifics of the legal relations regulated by the draft, other provisions of the draft may be treated by the justice authorities as corruptogenic factors as well.

8. Both official and unofficial information shall be used in an anticorruption review.

9. Official information shall include:

regulatory legal acts;

international treaties;

official publications, including official Internet resources;

statistical data and reports;

judicial practice.

10. Unofficial information shall include:

media reports;

scientific publications;

unofficial Internet resources.

11. Main rights of the employee of the justice body conducting the anticorruption review:

study in accordance with the procedure established by law the documents related to the subject matter of the drafts undergoing an anticorruption review;

request additional documents required to conduct the anticorruption review;

clarify the norms of the drafts under an anticorruption review and obtain the relevant explanations.

12. Main obligations of the employee of the justice body conducting the anticorruption review:

comply with the requirements established by legislation for the organization and conduct of an anticorruption review;

immediately report a recusal to their manager, if there are grounds for such a recusal;

not disclose information that became known to him or her in connection with the conduct of the anticorruption review;

ensure the safety of the documents submitted.

13. Anticorruption reviews of drafts shall be conducted by the justice authorities.

Anticorruption review may be conducted by the legal service of the developer or the body adopting the regulatory legal act, as well as by the bodies with which the drafts are to be coordinated.

Independent experts and specialists in specialized areas may also be involved in the process of conducting an anticorruption review.

14. The analysis of each norm or provision of the draft, as well as the level of compliance of the draft provisions with other regulatory legal acts in this area shall be conducted when holding an anticorruption review.

15. If corruptogenic factors are revealed in the draft, the results of the anticorruption review made by justice authority shall be reflected in the report on irrelevance of adopting the draft prepared based on the results of the legal review held.

16. The conclusion on irrelevance of adopting the draft shall indicate the corruptogenic factors revealed during the anticorruption review with a reflection of the draft structural units in which they were revealed.

17. Comments on the results of the anticorruption review of drafts shall be mandatory and faults indicated therein shall be remedied before their resubmission for legal review.

18. Should regulations containing corruptogenic factors be revealed in departmental regulatory legal acts, the Ministry of Justice shall deny their State registration in accordance with the Regulations on Preparation and Adoption of Departmental Regulatory Legal Acts (reg. No. 2565 dated 28 February 2014).

19. Anticorruption review of existing regulatory legal acts, international treaties of the Republic of Uzbekistan and their drafts shall be conducted in accordance with this Methodology.

Anticorruption review of existing regulatory legal acts shall be carried out in the process or by results of study, analysis and monitoring of law administration practice.

19¹. The following shall be grounds for conducting an anticorruption review of existing regulatory legal acts:

work plans of justice authorities, State bodies and organizations;

appeals of individuals and legal entities;

proposals and recommendations of public control subjects;

results of the study of publications and other materials from the media.

20. Based on the results of an anticorruption review of existing regulatory legal acts, the justice authorities may — in line with paragraph 12, subparagraph 5 of the Regulations on the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Uzbekistan approved by the Resolution of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan No. RP-3666 dated 13 April 2018 — make appropriate binding submissions to the State administration bodies, local government authorities, law enforcement agencies and controlling bodies.

21. Persons guilty for violating this Methodology shall be held liable under the established procedure.