Discussion Paper No.18

Legal Education in Uzbekistan: Historical
Overview and Challenges of Transition
Dr. Ismatov Aziz
July, 2019

Nagoya University
Center for Asian Legal Exchange

Center for Asian Legal Exchange (CALE)

Nagoya University, Japan

Legal Education in Uzbekistan: Historical Overview and Challenges of Transition

Ismatov Aziz

Uzbekistan

Table of Contents

ABBREVIATIONS LISTPREFACE................................................................................................................................................................................................... 1
I. Introductory chapter .............................................................................................................................................................................. 2
OVERVIEW ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 2
FUNDAMENTAL LAWS.............................................................................................................................................................................. 3
CENTRALIZED HIERARCHY OF HE (VERTICAL STRUCTURE) ................................................................................................................... 4
HEIS’ DIVERSE TYPES (HORIZONTAL STRUCTURE) ................................................................................................................................. 6
LANGUAGE POLICY .................................................................................................................................................................................. 8
BOLOGNA SYSTEM AND LEGAL EDUCATION ............................................................................................................................................ 8ADMISSIONS POLICY ................................................................................................................................................................................ 9
TUITION FEE .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 10
STRUCTURE ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 10
CURRICULUM CONCEPT ......................................................................................................................................................................... 11
STUDY MATERIALS ................................................................................................................................................................................ 12
TEACHING METHODS ............................................................................................................................................................................. 13
GRADING SYSTEM.................................................................................................................................................................................. 14
EXAMS ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 14
STAFF PROFILE....................................................................................................................................................................................... 15
RESEARCH ARGUMENTS ........................................................................................................................................................................ 16
II. Historical Overview of the Legal Education ..................................................................................................................................... 18
INTRODUCTION TO THE CHAPTER .......................................................................................................................................................... 18
II.1. PRE-SOVIET ERA ............................................................................................................................................................................ 18
II.1.a. Higher clerical legal study in Madrasa .................................................................................................................................. 18
II.2 THE SOVIET ERA ............................................................................................................................................................................. 21
II.2.a. The first secular university and formation peculiarities of its law faculty .............................................................................. 21
II.2.b. The 1926-1936 Pashukanis syllabi ......................................................................................................................................... 23
II.2.c. The 1937-1960 Vyshinskiy’s structure of the Soviet legal education ...................................................................................... 25
II.2.d. The 1960-1980 legal education .............................................................................................................................................. 27
II.2.e. Numbers and Law chairs ........................................................................................................................................................ 29
II.2.f. Methodological aspects of education ...................................................................................................................................... 30
II.2.g. Scientific research and international cooperation. ................................................................................................................. 31
II.3. LEGAL RESEARCH .......................................................................................................................................................................... 32
II.3.a. The Muminov Institute of Philosophy and Law of Uzbek SSR Academy of Science ................................................................ 32
II.4. THE INITIAL POST-SOVIET ENVIRONMENT .................................................................................................................................... 33
SUB-CONCLUSION TO THE CHAPTER ..................................................................................................................................................... 35
III. Tashkent State University of Law (TSUL): From Theoretical Aspects to Practicality ................................................................ 37
INTRODUCTION TO THE CHAPTER .......................................................................................................................................................... 37
FACULTIES (DIRECTIONS)...................................................................................................................................................................... 37
III.1. UNDERGRADUATE LEVEL (LL. B) ................................................................................................................................................. 38
III.1.a. Admissions and selection (requirements and entrance exam, admission numbers, state-sponsored grant/contract-based
study, stipend, classification by language/regions/gender) ............................................................................................................... 38
III.1.b. LL. B Curriculum (introduction of modular system, preparatory process, time division and academic disciplines,
internship)......................................................................................................................................................................................... 44
III.1.c. Teaching methods.................................................................................................................................................................. 48
III.1.d. Assessment (ongoing, mid-term, final exams) ....................................................................................................................... 50
III.1.e. Graduation requirements/exam(s) for obtaining a degree. ................................................................................................... 51
II.1.f. Career placement (legal/para-legal/non-legal)....................................................................................................................... 52
III.2. GRADUATE LEVEL (LL. M) ........................................................................................................................................................... 54
III.2.a. Admissions and selection (requirements and entrance exam, admission numbers and state-sponsored grant/contract-based
study, classification by language/regions/gender) ............................................................................................................................ 54
III.2.b. LL. M Curriculum (preparatory process, time division and academic disciplines, internship)............................................. 59
III.2.c. Teaching methods and assessment ........................................................................................................................................ 63
III.2.d. Graduation requirements/exam(s) for obtaining a degree .................................................................................................... 63
III.2.e. Career placement (legal/para-legal/non-legal)..................................................................................................................... 64

III.3. LAW CHAIRS, CENTERS AND FACULTY STAFF PROFILE ................................................................................................................. 65
Centers .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 66
Faculty staff profile........................................................................................................................................................................... 67
III.4. LIBRARY AND RESOURCES ............................................................................................................................................................ 68
III.5. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION .................................................................................................................................................... 69
SUB-CONCLUSION TO THE CHAPTER ..................................................................................................................................................... 70
IV. University of World Economy and Diplomacy (UWED) International Law Faculty: Globalizing with Socialist Characteristics................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 72
INTRODUCTION TO THE CHAPTER .......................................................................................................................................................... 72
FACULTIES ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 73
VI.1. UNDERGRADUATE LEVEL (LL. B IN INTERNATIONAL LAW) ........................................................................................................ 73
VI.1.a. Admissions and selection (requirements and entrance exam, admission numbers and state-sponsored grant/contract-based
study, stipend, classification by language/regions/gender) ............................................................................................................... 73
IV.1.b. LL. B Curriculum (preparatory process, time division, and academic disciplines, internship)............................................. 81
IV.1.c. Teaching methods .................................................................................................................................................................. 85
IV.1.d. Assessment (oral assessment, tests, term exams) ................................................................................................................... 87
IV.1.e. Graduation requirements/exam(s) for obtaining a degree. .................................................................................................... 88
IV.1.f. Career placement (legal/para-legal/non-legal)...................................................................................................................... 89
VI.2. GRADUATE LEVEL (LL.M)............................................................................................................................................................ 90
IV.2.a. Admissions and selection (requirements and entrance exam, admissions numbers and state-sponsored grant/contractbased study, classification by language/regions/sex) ........................................................................................................................ 91
III.2.b. LL. M Curriculum (preparatory process, time division and academic disciplines, internship)............................................. 94
VI.2.c. Teaching methods and assessment ........................................................................................................................................ 96
IV.2.d. Graduation requirements/exam(s) for obtaining a degree. ................................................................................................... 97
IV.2.e. Career placement (legal/para-legal/non-legal) ..................................................................................................................... 98
IV.3. LAW CHAIRS, CENTERS AND FACULTY STAFF PROFILE ................................................................................................................. 98
Faculty staff profile......................................................................................................................................................................... 101
IV.4. QUALITY CONTROL ..................................................................................................................................................................... 102
IV.5. LIBRARY AND RESOURCES .......................................................................................................................................................... 103
IV.6. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION.................................................................................................................................................. 104
SUB-CONCLUSION TO THE CHAPTER ................................................................................................................................................... 105
V. Clinical Legal Education in Uzbekistan and its Characteristics .................................................................................................... 107
INTRODUCTION TO THE CHAPTER ........................................................................................................................................................ 107
V.1. CASE STUDIES OF UZBEK CLE PROGRAMS ................................................................................................................................. 109
V.1.a. UWED Law Clinic ................................................................................................................................................................ 109
V.1.b. TSUL Law Clinic .................................................................................................................................................................. 111
SUB-CONCLUSION TO THE CHAPTER ................................................................................................................................................... 112
VI. Doctorate Level Legal Education (Ph.D. and D.Sc.) ..................................................................................................................... 113
INTRODUCTION TO THE CHAPTER ........................................................................................................................................................ 113
VI.1. A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF DOCTORAL LEGAL EDUCATION EVOLUTION (THE SOVIET PERIOD, THE 1991-2017, THE POST-2017
PERIOD)................................................................................................................................................................................................ 113
The Soviet period ............................................................................................................................................................................ 113
The 1992-2017 ................................................................................................................................................................................ 114
The post-2017 period ...................................................................................................................................................................... 115
VI.2. THE ROLE OF THE SUPREME ATTESTATION COMMISSION (VAK) .............................................................................................. 116
VI.3. ADMISSIONS (REQUIREMENTS AND ENTRANCE EXAM, QUOTA, STATE-SPONSORED GRANT/CONTRACT-BASED STUDY/STIPEND)............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 117
Requirements and entrance exam ................................................................................................................................................... 117
Quota .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 118
State-sponsored grant/contract-based study/stipend....................................................................................................................... 118
VI.4. RESEARCH, DISSERTATION AND FINAL QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTS ................................................................................... 119
VI.5. DOCTORAL MAJORS AT THE TSUL ............................................................................................................................................. 121
VI.6. DOCTORAL MAJOR AT THE UWED ............................................................................................................................................. 122
SUB-CONCLUSION TO THE CHAPTER ................................................................................................................................................... 122
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 123
Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 124

ABBREVIATIONS LISTABA CEELI
APA
CEFR
CIS
CLE
DAAD
ECTS
GIZ
HE
HEI
JICA
KOICA
MOHSSE
MOJ
MOFA
MOT
MOF
MOIAA
MFT
MASHAV
NPPT
SSSI
STC
TSUL
TashGU
UNDP
USAID
UWED
VAK
WIUT

American Bar Association, Central European and Eurasian
Legal Initiative
Academy of Public Administration under the president of therepublic of Uzbekistan
Common European Framework of Reference for Languages
Commonwealth of Independent States
Clinical Legal Education
Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst/ German Academic
Exchange Service
European Credit Transfer System
Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit
Higher Education
Higher Educational Institution
Japanese International Cooperation Agency
Korean International Cooperation Agency
Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education
Ministry of Justice
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Ministry of Trade
Ministry of Finance
Ministry of Internal Affairs Academy
Ministry of Foreign Trade
Israel’s Agency for International Development Cooperation
National Program for Personnel Training
State Security Service InstituteState Testing Center
Tashkent State University of Law
Tashkent State University (Former SAGU)
United Nations Development Program
United States Agency for International Development
University of World Economy and Diplomacy
State Attestation Commission
Westminster International University in Tashkent

PREFACE

The primary aim of this book is to contribute to the understanding of the processes taking place in
Uzbekistan in terms of legal education formation in the years after the demise of the Soviet Union.
It should be noted that this book also focuses on the pre-Soviet era in which the territory presently
known as Uzbekistan implemented widely the theological legal education, and the Soviet era
which introduced a secular legal education system. Therefore, the coverage and analysis of thisbook primarily aims to elucidate the evolution and the model of higher legal education in the yearsof post-1991 reforms with relevant references to the Soviet legal education system.
Given the information contained in the following chapters, namely, what is happening in thedomain of legal education in Uzbekistan, there is an enormous scope for cooperation among
policymakers, law teaching faculties and legal educators in matter of curriculum development,
legal pedagogy, clinical teaching methods, professional legal practice, academic research anddevelopment of adequate legal materials. Similarly, there is a serious challenge in Uzbekistan torestructure the doctoral level legal education in such a way to bring it closer to the realities ofcontemporary legal science.
To find out how legal education in Uzbekistan can strengthen the rule of law and democracy,
scholars and practitioners need yet to conceptualize carefully how law curriculum, legal pedagogy
methods, legal materials and other essential elements in preparation future lawyers fit thephilosophy of law. In other words, how higher legal education can transform the future lawyers
into true social justice engineers to achieve the constitutional dream of equal justice for all. Indeed,as it may be obvious from the following chapters, there is a wide fundamental gap between
constitutional goals and highly state-centered legal education agendas.

Ismatov Aziz
Nagoya, Japan
July, 20191

I. Introductory chapter
Overview
In 1991, socialism officially ended amid the collapse of the USSR which catapulted
Uzbekistan as well as other former Soviet Central Asian republics towards independence andattempts to build an economy modeled on western type, democracy, and stable civil society. Since
the demise of the USSR, Uzbekistan’s government, similarly to other former Soviet states, hasoften been adhering to the ‘fashionable’ tendency to comprehensively criticize and distance fromall developments associated with the Sovetizatsiya, including the education of lawyers andprinciples of legal profession. Indeed, official figures point that in the pre-independence period,
Uzbekistan was among the USSR’s farmer-countries with the lowest rate of access to higher
education.1 In fact, there was only one small law faculty in Tashkent, which once covered thewhole Soviet Central Asia, and produced barely around 70 law graduates per year, trained tounderstand the theory of state and law and mechanically apply codified provisions of law
commentaries.2
In the first decade of independence, considering the Soviet legal education as ideologyoriented and unsuitable in the realities of transition from socialism to market-oriented economy,
the government of Uzbekistan decided to distance from existing framework for legal professional
education and established four law faculties and one profile law institute. However, by taking acomprehensive look at the core characteristics of the post-Soviet legal education, for example,
curriculum design, law teaching methods, and general management of relevant HEIs, it is apparent
that legal educational system was modeled broadly by imitating the Soviet legal education doctrine
and offered no modern sociology of law approach which would enable students to specify andunderstand correctly the contradictions occurring in transitional Uzbekistan. In such circumstances,
short and long-term issues concerning cultivating interculturally-competent and internationallyminded legal scholars and practitioners arose, and it eventually affected the trajectory of legal
education’s gravitation towards globalization. Hence, the post-Soviet HE reforms in Uzbekistan
which predetermined the historical evolution of legal education during the transition period andtheir ‘top-down’ implementation raise critical concerns about the role of law and preparation of
new generation of legal professionals aimed to address the needs of society. Given the sharp
contrast between the legal education’s objectives and factual situation, many legal scholars andpractitioners trained in the Soviet period assert that Soviet legal education, as compared to thepresent situation, was indeed well-conceptualized, adequately managed, and better funded in termsof infrastructure and human capital.
This research carefully documents and analyzes the evolution and transition challenges oflegal education in Uzbekistan to detect critical aspects and address the nature of their existence. It
initially touches upon the legal educational traditions which existed in the pre-Soviet era and theestablishment of the first law faculty in the Soviet Uzbekistan in 1928. It later carefully examines
the post-1991 period’s critical reforms in HE sector and their impact on the ‘formation’ of modern
legal education. Central chapters examine in detail existing profile HEIs which offer LL.B and
LL.M degrees and current mode of doctoral legal education in Uzbekistan. Such line offers a reader
United Nations Development Programme., United Nations Development Programme. Education in Uzbekistan:Matching Supply and Demand (Tashkent, 2008), Tashkent.
2
For ex. by 1921 the total number of students in the law faculty was 30, however by 1923, already 71 people graduatedthe faculty with the specialization of law and economics. Refer further to; A. Agzamhodjaev and B. Blinder,
Tashkentskiy Gosudarstvenniy Universitet Imeni V.I. Lenina. Yuridicheskiy Fakul’tet (Tashkent: O’qituvchi, 1980), 8.
12

a more explicit and the same time, broader picture of current legal education, in Uzbekistan, itsfeatures and gravitation tendency.
Fundamental laws
Transition towards market economy necessitated the creation of an entirely new legal
system to promote fair market economy, establish the rule of law, democracy, and a system toprepare future professionals. Notably, as the vast majority of pollical elites in the newly
independent Uzbekistan had been raised and trained within the socialist state realities, the reforms
in Uzbekistan, including those in higher education sphere have peculiar characteristics. In
particular, they are gradualist in terms of implementation timeframe and accompanied with thedominant, controlling role of state throughout long transition period. 3 In other words, thegovernment carried its reforms by placing strict deadlines similar to those in a planned economy
era, and in a ‘top-down,’ strictly centralized manner, including in the HE sector. Such statecentered approach did not permit any autonomy to HEIs in terms of admissions, curriculum design,
law teaching methods, and financial management.4
The first significant in nature and formal in essence step in gradual reforms of HE wasinitiated in 1992 with the adoption of the law on education.5 This law laid very general provisions
on principles and nature of the proposed reforms of educational sector. It also initially mentioned
about the state educational standards.6 The 1992 law on education was a pioneer step which did
not result in any structural reforms as it merely contained no accurate reflections of thegovernment’s views and strategy towards HE policy. Therefore, until certain period, the entire
higher legal education system remained widely untouched, with the exception of termination of
Marxist-Leninist philosophy and scientific communism. In 1997, with the adoption of the law on
education in a new version, HE separated into two levels - bachelor’s level (unaccomplished higher
education) and master level (higher education).7
In the same 1997, the government came up, to a certain extent, with a more clearly
formulated program aimed at reforming the whole education system - the national program forpersonnel training (Hereinafter, the NPPT).8 The NPPT is a purely state-initiated and state-funded
product which absorbed peculiar traditional values and focused on producing specialists who
would respond to the needs of new market-oriented system. It also intended to liberalize educationin terms of making it more autonomous and less dependent from the influence of any ideologicaldogmas. 9 The NPPT aimed to shift from old to a new concept of HE and allocated theimplementation of main objectives within three periods. (Refer to the table below)
Key reform programs of Uzbekistan are available further in; Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan on the Way of Deepeningof Economic Reforms. (Tashkent: Sharq, 1995); I. A. Karimov, Uzbekistan on the Threshold of the Twenty-First
Century: Challenges to Stability and Progress (St. Martin’s Press, 1998); Islam Karimov, [On the way ofModernization of the country and development of economy] Mamlakatni modernizatsiya qilish va iqtisodiyotimizni
barqaror rivozhlantirish yo`lida (Uzbekistan, 2008).
4
John C. Weidman and Brian Yoder, ‘Policy and Practice in Education Reform in Mongolia and Uzbekistan during
the First Two Decades of the Post-Soviet Era’, Excellence in Higher Education 1, no. 1/2 (31 December 2010): 5768.
5
Zakon Respubliki Uzbekistan ob Obrazovanii (Outdated) (Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta Uzbekistana N 6, 1992).
6
Ibid.Art 6.
7
Zakon ob Obrazovanii (Prezident Respubliki Uzbekistan). Art 14.
8
Natsional’naya Programma po Podgotovke Kardov. Vedomosti Oliy Majlisa Respubliki Uzbekistan N 11-12(Uzbekistan 1997).
9
Ibid. 2.1
3

3

First stage (1997-2001)
Infrastructural renovation
Introduction of the state
educational standards (newcurricula);
Preparation of new teaching andlearning resources;
Exploring alternative (non-public)
funding;
Introduction of rating system(assessment);
Widening international
cooperation;

Second stage (2001-2005)
Full-scale implementation
Development of pedagogicalstaff, textbooks, electronic
databases, and online study
resources;
Reorganization of a five-year
specialist into four-five years
LL.B and two-year LL.M;
Two-year Ph.D. - Aspirantura(Candidat Nauk), and Dc.S Doktorantura - (Doctor Nauk);

Third stage (2005-)
Further enhancement
Complex analysis of the previous
progress and experience;
Further development of teaching
and learning resources, teaching
staff;
Establishing high-class HEIs;
Strengthening autonomy of HEIs;

Table 1.1: The NPPT development stages and their timescales.
Source, the NPPT law, Natsional’naya Programma po Podgotovke Kardov. Vedomosti Oliy Majlis Respubliki
Uzbekistan N 11-12 (Uzbekistan 1997).

Although the NPPT intended to introduce the state educational standards during the firststage of implementation, it was only in 2001 when the Cabinet of Ministers adopted the regulation
on state educational standards for HE to implement the requirements of the law on education.10
The state educational standard is a code for a particular scientific area that includes formal
requirement: members of faculty (for law teaching HEIs; the number of teachers with master anddoctoral degree in law) recommended books and their quantity, curriculum, and even the numberof students in class. The state educational standard framework with the MOHSSE at the top is nota novelty in Uzbekistan because similar other former USSR states implement similar policies intheir HE sector.
Since 1992, the government has adopted three legal statutes, namely, the law on education,
the NPPT, and the regulation on state educational standards which up to now form the cornerstoneof the HE system in Uzbekistan. These acts regulate HE objectives, management, financing,requirements, and many other related aspects. While these three statutes govern the generalprinciples, and create the framework of HE, numerous regulations and orders of public institutions,particularly those issued by the MOHSSE clarify and determine further the administration andcriteria of HE.
Centralized hierarchy of HE (Vertical structure)
The Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan is a central organization which isplaced on the top of the higher education hierarchy and is a superior decision-making organ. It
bears de jure responsibility for the admissions, implementation of state educational standards,
funding and vital organizational matters regarding the HE. While it bears competence in seniorappointments in HEIs, it is a well-established practice that rectors in the TSUL and the UWED are
appointed by the President. 11 The State Testing Center (STC) is responsible for administering[The 2001 State Educational Standards Reegulation. Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov Respubliki Uzbekistan ob
Utverjdenii Gosudarstvennyh Obrazovatel’nyh Standartov Vysshego Obrazovaniya. S izmeneniyami i dopolneniyami,
N23, 2017, n.d.
11
President also appoints the Rector of the Academy of Public Administration.
104

entrance exams to all HEIs in Uzbekistan.12 It was established in 1994 as one division under the
Cabinet of Ministers. (Refer further to Admissions policy).
The Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education (MOHSSE) is an executive
body responsible for the supervision of the general direction of the education and approval of
relevant normative acts. It is theoretically a successor of its Soviet predecessor and presently,
manages a wide range of issues, such as creation of curriculums in strict accordance with state
educational standards, preparation of syllabus and study programs, provision of methodologicalguidance, approval and publication of textbooks, organization of academic year, and many otherimportant aspects related to the HE system. Its competence with regard to HE is sometimes limitedby the profile ministries to which certain HEIs are attached. For example, the University of World
Economy and Diplomacy is attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), whereas the
Tashkent State University of Law is attached to the Ministry of Justice (MOJ). Such hierarchicalstructure partly limits the administrative competence of the MOHSSE over specific HEIs.13 In turn,all HEIs suffer a heavy burden of multiple accountability which severely limits their capacity to
manage own education process autonomously. In addition to that, such accountability often
prevents HEIs’ flexibility to adapt to new changes.14
Ministry Board

First Deputy-Minister

Main Department on
personnel training and
HEIs administerialmethodical support;
Department coordinating
educational andmethodical activities of
HEIs;
Personnel training and job
allocation monitoring
department;
Control andmonitoring
department;
Enlightment/
Spirituality Center;
Head-department on
science andmethodology

Minister

Deputy-Minister
Director of theSecondaryVocational
Education Center

Deputy-Minister(Scientific affairs)

Deputy-Minister(Financial affairs)

SecondaryVocational
Education
CenterScientificresearchcoordination

Financial
unit;

Main department
controlling introduction of
new programs and study
literature;
Department controlling
curriculums and study
literature;

International
Affairs unit

Professional developmentof teaching staff;

Accounting;Management
etc.

HR Department

Legal unit

Center forContemporary History

Electronic
Education
CenterSpirituality/
Enlightment
department

IT Promotion
Center

HEI's department

Higher/Secondary
Specialised Vocational
education
development centerFig 1.1: Organizational structure of the MOHSSE.

Source: the MOHSSE, Legal Unit.

Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov Respubliki Uzbekistan 258 o Sozdanii Gosudarstvennogo Centra Testirovaniya
pri Kabinete Ministrov Respubliki Uzbekistan. 14 May 1994., n.d.
13
The Institute of State Security Service (the SSS Institute) under the State Security Service, Academy of Ministry ofInternal Affairs (the MOIAA) under the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Some exceptions, such as APA under the
President of the Republic of Uzbekistan)
14
Weidman and Yoder, “Policy and Practice in Education Reform in Mongolia and Uzbekistan during the First Two
Decades of the Post-Soviet Era.”
12

5

The government has created a strictly centralized the decision-making process by placing
the Cabinet of Ministers at the top of the education hierarchy and attaching all domestic HEIs
simultaneously to the MOHSSE and subordinating various matters to many public-statutory
degrees and regulations. 15 The current situation is also sophisticated as higher legal education
operates under many regulatory regimes. For example, while all mentioned HEIs must comply
with the general requirements of the HE laws and are also subject of supervision by the MOHSSE
in terms of accreditation, quality control, admissions, the contents of the curriculum and graduation
requirements, the TSUL, the UWED and several other specific HEIs while relatively free in termsof curriculum design, subordinate additionally to the relevant profile ministries. On the other hand,
the Academy of Public Administration (the APA) functions under the different administrative
framework is entirely independent of MOHSEE’s control.

Cabinet of Ministers
State Testing Center(STC)

Profile Ministries(MOJ, MOFA, MOIA, SSS)

Ministry of Higher andSecondary Specialised
Education (MOHSSE)

Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs)(TSUL, UWED, MOIAA, ISSS)

Branches of Foreign Universities
in Uzbekistan

Fig 1.2: Centralized hierarchical framework of the higher legal education in Uzbekistan. The Ministry of Internal
Affairs Academy and State Security Service Institute are specialized military HEIs which do not confer the LL.B
/LL.M degrees but offer legal curriculum. (TSUL is partly autonomous from MOHSSE)

HEIs’ diverse types (Horizontal structure)
The laws on higher education classify HEIs in Uzbekistan into six categories; multidisciplinary universities, profile universities, institutes, academies, regional branches of domestic
HEIs, and branches of foreign universities. All HEIs, except the branches of foreign universities,
are state-owned. The 1997 law on education de jure allows creation and functioning of private
educational entities.16 In fact, in the wake of independence, the government allowed a handful ofprivate HEIs to register and even obtain a license for conducting teaching activities. However,“fearing sub-standardization of higher education degrees, the government soon decided not toallow any private sector involvement in higher education, resulting in the demise of a newly
Kobil Ruziev and Umar Burkhanov, “Uzbekistan: Higher Education Reforms and the Changing Landscape Since
Independence,” 2018, 444.
16
Zakon ob Obrazovanii.
15

6

emerging market segment.” 17 In 2013, the government decreased the number of law teaching
profile HEIs to just two and concentrated them in the capital city area, which comparatively toregions, already locates a disproportionately high number of HEIs. Hence, out of 84 HEIs in
Uzbekistan in 2018, only six offered courses in law and out of these six, only three offer LL.B and
LL.M degrees, including one foreign branch. 18 A faculty of history and law in Karakalpakstan
integrates both, studies in history and general theory in law, and hence, represents a hybrid mixtureof humanitarian and social sciences curriculum. Although HEIs exist in all regions of Uzbekistan,those six which offer law are disproportionately allocated in the Tashkent capital city. Suchsituation raises a very critical issue of a limited access to legal education for populations residingin the regions.
Higher education institute category
Academies
Multi-disciplinary universities
Profile universities
Institutes
Branches of foreign universities
Domestic HEIs regional branches

Numbers
2
11
10
38
8
15

Offer courses in law
0
0
3
1
1
0

Offer LL. B/ LL.M
0
0
2
0
1
0

Table 1.2: Horizontal structure and the number of law teaching HEIs in Uzbekistan in 2018
Source. Compiled from MOHSSE’s web data.

Academies offer professional-scientific training in specific areas and, traditionally, theirstatus is higher compared to national universities and institutes. Out of two academies, both offer
legal disciplines required for their specific curriculum, however, do not grant LL.B or LL.M upon
graduation. The Academy of Ministry of Internal Affairs (the MOIAA) is a specialized-military
HEI which prepares professionals for managing positions within the structure of the Ministry ofInternal Affairs. While its curriculum lists several legal disciplines, students (cadets) mainly focus
on criminal and administrative law. Some law disciplines are also available in the mastercurriculum of the Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Republic of
Uzbekistan (the APA). However, it similarly does not award a degree in law to its graduates.19
Academies also offer continuous professional and executive training courses. The Institute of theState Security Service (the SSS Institute), similarly to the MOIAA, is a specialized-military HEI
which prepares professionals for managing positions within the structure of the State Security
Service (Successor of the former Soviet KGB).20
Profile universities are smaller compared to multi-disciplinary universities. Currently, there
are only two state-owned profile (specialized) universities in Uzbekistan which offer LL.B and
LL.M degrees; the Tashkent State University of Law (TSUL), and the University of World
Economy and Diplomacy (UWED, International Law Faculty). Foreign university branch Westminster International University in Tashkent (WIUT, originally London based) is
Kobil Ruziev and Umar Burkhanov, Uzbekistan: Higher Education Reforms and the Changing Landscape Since
Independence, 2018, 445.
18
Compared to three decades ago, the number has doubled. For example, in 1988-89 the number of HEIs in the Uzbek
SSR was - 43 and only one small law faculty at TashGU. Refer further to, J.J. Brunner and A. Tillet, Higher Educationin Central Asia: The Challenges of Modernization: Case Studies from Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, The Kyrgyz Republik,
and Uzbekistan. (Washington, D.C.: World Bank Publications, 2007), 145.
19
Refer further to Section on Master in Public Administration Program.
20
Renamed in 2018 from National Security Service into the Sate Security Service.
17

7

comparatively a novelty in HE system of Uzbekistan which is based on a private-public
partnership.21 To date, it is the only foreign HEI in Uzbekistan which offers LL.B and LL.M witha specific focus on business and commercial law. It was initiated by the government in 2002 andgiven a small population of law degree holders has not yet turned into a competitive player within
the Uzbek HE market.
The creation of foreign university branches in Uzbekistan came as an alternative measureof dispatching Uzbek students abroad and funding their studies there. Notably, since 1990s, “thegovernment experimented with competitively selecting 800 higher education students annuallyfrom Uzbek HEIs and funding their higher education studies in advanced economies such as theUSA, the UK, Germany, and Japan.”22 The so-called UMID public foundation competent directly
to the President of Uzbekistan actively selected talented candidates across the country and covered
their studies in various HEIs abroad. Eventually, given the high costs spent for each candidate andmultiple incidents of students not returning back to Uzbekistan, the government replaced suchfunds by establishing foreign university branches domestically in hope to localize preparation of
specialists.
Language policy
Even though in the initial years of independence Uzbekistan, similarly to Baltic states
adopted a notorious language law which gave Uzbek language a status of lingua franca, it still
remains multilingual with Uzbek, Russian and Karakalpak languages in use.23 The Soviet Union
education system widely introduced Russian in the Central Asian region and, given the fact that
seniors from the current local political elite were mainly educated in Russian language, it still
occupies a space in the government (legal) related affairs. Therefore, the languages of statutory
laws and legal education in Uzbekistan apart from Uzbek are also available in Russian (Or in
Karakalpak language). On the other hand, the number of younger generation of Uzbek students
and graduates in HEI possessing required academic and professional competence in Russian is
gradually decreasing. While many study English as a foreign language, it does not play asignificant role in domestic, especially legal affairs. That is to note that many law students andgraduates can speak it on a daily basis, but they lack adequate competence in legal English.
Bologna system and legal education
The Bologna declaration which is open for ratification since 1999, aims primarily toharmonize educational levels and degrees and to remove obstacles and barriers to the mobility ofstudents, trainees, graduates, as well as teachers, researchers, and higher education
administrators.24 As of 2018, Uzbekistan is not a Bologna signatory party, but recently there aresome signs of compliance with its main objectives in terms of degrees and program length. 25 In2012 the European Commission conducted a study on Uzbekistan’s conformity with the Bologna
declaration regarding the following six aspects; 1) the Bologna structure of three cycles, 2)
Uzbekistan; Modernizing Tertiary Education (Washington, D.C., 2014), Washington, D.C.
Ruziev and Burkhanov, 449.
23
Zakon Respubliki Uzbekistan o Gosudarstvennom Yazike, 1995.
24
Christopher P. M. Waters, Counsel In The Caucasus: Professionalization And Law In Georgia (Martinus Nijhoff
Publishers, 2004), 38; Shuvro Prosun Sarker, Legal Education in Asia (Eleven International Publishing, 2014), 149.
25
Currently, out of 11 countries of the CIS - seven are official members to the Bologna Declaration.
21
22

8

European credit transfer system (ECTS), 3) the Bologna diploma supplement, 4) the national
qualification framework, 5) quality assurance mechanisms, 6) the recognition of foreign
qualifications. So far, Uzbekistan has adopted a three-level Bologna model that corresponds to thebachelor’s, master’s and doctorate. While things are clear and in compliance with bachelor’s andmaster’s, the third cycle, which is a doctorate level, still remains unclear and outside theuniversities’ competence. (Refer for details to the section on doctoral level education)
The ECTS, which enables recognition of grades in multiple universities as well as
facilitates students’ mobility and study abroad has also not yet formed a clear rule. However, recentchanges at the TSUL allows students to recognize and transfer credits obtained in foreign
universities, even though there is a non-credit curriculum at the TSUL. The Bologna diploma
supplement consists typically of sections which specify the nature, level, context, content, andstatus of successfully completed training. The HEIs in Uzbekistan provide a diploma supplement
demonstrating the subjects passed, and grades earned. The national quality assurance system andrecognition of foreign qualifications fall under the competency of the State Testing Center under
the Cabinet of Ministers. In 2017, the Cabinet has also updated its state educational standards
regarding the requirements for legal education directions.
Admissions policy
All prospective students apply to universities directly after completing high school,
vocational college or academic lyceum. Hence, all candidates are in their 18-20. Admissionscommissions while requiring high school transcripts pay a scarce attention to the grades obtained
in at school. Enrollment is based on the admissions tests which usually include questions on history,
native language and literature, and foreign language. Admissions exam have just introducing
preliminary exams which aim to reveal applicants’ critical thinking skills. Such exams howeverstill do not speculate any preliminary test of legal - analytical skills. Application process is very
different compared to the Western style law schools. In Uzbekistan, candidates aiming to study
law at universities do not have to demonstrate excellent marks from previous education,
recommendation letters, curriculum vitae, essays specifying the purpose, motivation and previous
achievements. Furthermore, they do not attend competitive interviews and do not have todemonstrate commitment to excellence while studying or undertaking internships.
Before 1990, admissions into HEIs was administered locally by each university andincluded oral and written entrance exams on relevant subjects. Such system could not always provefair given the direct contact between examinee and relevant professor. Furthermore, frequent
reports of corruption during the entrance exams in the period between 1980-1990 raised a questionof establishing admissions policy based on fair and equal access to higher education. In 1992,
newly independent Uzbekistan piloted in several HEIs a reformed system of entrance exams basedon testing. Later, in 1994, the State Testing Center (STC) monopolized the HE entrance exam
system in Uzbekistan.
Contemporary admission test method implemented by the STC in Uzbekistan is in principle
different from the subjective Western method of selecting candidates by focusing additionally on
applicant’s character and commitments. It is somewhat objective method of evaluation based on
detailed question and answer exam, where the only motivation is to prepare well for tests.
Admission tests mainly aim to determine applicant’s general knowledge studied at school and do
not consider other aspects. This system was obviously designed with a view to refuse the Sovietstyle admissions where human factor played one of the dominant roles (Applicant had to choose9particular question and orally answer in front of interviewer or a board of interviewers and thenwrite essay) and offer a comprehensive computer-based evaluation of test results instead. Thus,
government thought it would offer a fair access to the legal higher education to everyone.
Unsuccessful applicants are eligible to lodge appeal with the STC for reviewing their work andscore.
Tuition fee
In the Soviet period, one of the remarkable achievements of the socialism was education
free of money. Students did not pay tuition fees and, furthermore, received an adequate stipend
from the government. Such stipend could vary based on academic progress of students. HE in thepresent-day Uzbekistan is not free of money for all. In fact, the vast majority of students pay for
their education as a result of the dual-mode admissions system adopted in 1994. According to new
system, the government classifies enrollment into HEIs into two types, the one which is funded bystate - the so-called state-grant based study, and funded by student (usually by his family) contract-based study. The Cabinet annually determines the quota - number of students admitted
into state-grant and contract-based studies. Based on the results of admissions tests, those whoachieve the highest scores will enroll on the state-grant basis and will not have to cover tuition fee.
Those whose score is lower, outside of grant quota, can commence their studies only in case if thecover tuition fee which raises annually. In 2017, the government introduced a system of additional(above the traditional contract quota) admissions based on a higher contract rate. 26 In order toenroll on such system, an applicant is expected to collect a minimal score in the admissions exam
and agree to cover a tuition fee which is incomparably higher than regular contract. The HE
programs offer only full-time, on-campus studies. Hybrid, online-educational programs based ona remote access are still unknown phenomenon in Uzbekistan. The government also terminatedevening higher education courses widely-practiced in Soviet times. Regardless of enrollment type,whether state-grant or contract-based, all students continue receiving a monthly stipend which canbe increased for excellent marks.
State-grant recipients obtain their graduation diplomas, once they work for the public sectorin Uzbekistan for about three years. Given the fact that state covers their tuition fee, it usually
expects them to pay back in the form of work in the public sector. In practice, however, as
government cannot secure employment for HEIs graduates, as it was widely practiced in the former
Soviet Union, it is somewhat flexible whether state-grant recipient works for the public or private
sectors in Uzbekistan.
Structure
To large extent, classes in Uzbekistan are conducted ex cathedra where instructor transfers
knowledge to students on a ‘top-down’ way. A handful of young faculty members with foreign law
degrees try to utilize the Socratic pedagogy, but their efforts often opposed by senior faculty
members who adhere to the traditional lecture style. Lectures last 90 minutes and students are
sometimes required to take notes (konspekt) which they must later revise and rely on during the

The number of additional quotes are to be determined by the State Commission based on the potential ofparticular higher education entity as well as the major of study. Refer further to, Postanovlenie Prezidenta Respubliki
Uzbekistan 2955., 5.
26

10

seminars. All lectures and seminars in the curriculum are mandatory, and professors often takeattendance at the beginning of the class.
Every academic year is composed of two semesters. During each semester students,
participate in lectures and following seminars which usually take the form of question-answer
sessions. Later, they take mid-term exams and sometimes submit written assignments. In someuniversities, students are required to submit course papers as a compulsory part of the curriculum.
After each semester students take exams and receive their grades. Each university has elaborated
various methods of evaluation of students’ academic progress.
Curriculum concept
There has not been much debate yet about the goals of academic legal curriculum in
Uzbekistan. Indeed, all countries in the CIS region struggle with this question. 27 So far, legal
curriculum in Uzbekistan very sporadically includes such vital components as; legal theories, theway they are adapted in the transitional economy, changing society and the effect they pose on thissociety, its ethics, politics, and economy. It also focuses, although in a tiny scale, in legal critics
and review. What it mainly neglects is education on application of academic legal knowledge topractice of law. The practice versus theory dichotomy remains for many years as a central point ofconcern when it comes to legal curriculum development in Uzbekistan.
Presently, the primary characteristic of legal education in Uzbekistan is that legal
curriculum is designed in a way to provide academic, theoretical education rather than professional
legal training that would concentrate of law’s practical implications. Therefore, experts of Western
legal education often tend to agree that LL.B curriculums which are heavily based on theory andless in practice, do not prepare students for the real world of legal practice. Indeed, LL.B degreein Uzbekistan is considered as incomplete higher education, and most of the bachelor graduates
may begin their careers only as trainees or junior assistants.
Legal curriculums in Uzbek HEIs are relatively strict and unreasonably burdensome interms of academic workload. Within four or five years, students must cover a considerable numberof mandatory non-legal, para-legal and legal disciplines and there is no much freedom to study aparticular direction of law.28 The core legal courses start from the second year (in case of UWED
even from third year) while profile legal disciplines appear only in the last courses. Furthermore,
students often have to follow a curriculum which contains a long list of irrelevant to law disciplines.
Therefore, one may point to the inability of some law curriculums to accommodate students
interests and offer them more flexibility in their chosen areas.
Several years ago, there were serious and far-reaching attempts to reform legal curriculumat the TSUL with a view to reduce mandatory disciplines and encourage a broader specialization
through profile legal disciplines. Indeed, this reform could address many critical issues and ingeneral positively impacted the study process. However, as it will become evident in the next
sections, the reform remains halfway unrealized, and it necessitates further actions to be taken for
its logical conclusion.
Instead of practical implications, the legal curriculum in Uzbekistan offers students a moresophisticated understanding of historical, philosophical and dogmatic backgrounds of law. Most
Waters, Counsel In The Caucasus; Sarker, Legal Education in Asia; D. Wes Rist, The Export of Legal Education:
Its Promise and Impact in Transition Countries (Routledge, 2016).
28
If a student fails to attend a certain percent of scheduled classes without serious reasons, he is deemed to have failed
the course and may be expelled by the rector from the university.
27

11

of this comes from the compulsory non-legal subjects like history of state and law, theory of stateand law, Roman law, philosophy and other disciplines taught in the first and second years. The
mere fact of remaining in the present curriculum of the history and theory of state and law which
was inherited from the old Soviet curriculum demonstrates clearly the remaining state-centrism inmodern legal education.
Study materials
Usually, at the beginning of the course, lecturers hold introductory sessions where theymention briefly about the whole course’s study materials. Such materials comprehensively include
course books and monographs written in Russian or Uzbek languages and recommended by the
MOHSSE. Sometimes lecturers recommend searching for relevant statutes. Lecturers seldom
prepare and disseminate study materials to students beforehand.29 It is student, who must find allrecommended readings in the library or elsewhere. Given an obvious underfunding problem oflibraries, they rarely accommodate every student’s needs.
Lecturers in Uzbekistan rarely use casebooks. It is often caused by lecturers’ own education(most of them were not trained to work with cases and do not know well how to pick up cases
which are relevant for the topic, how to train students to identify legal issues and understandcontroversial legal provisions from the text of the case. Instead, lecturers rely heavily on excerpts
from books which provide a general information about the principles of law, doctrinal andphilosophical aspects. Lecturers who follow the old ’top-down’ method of lecturing, read suchexcerpts and require students to take notes and memorize lecture. Notes are used later in theseminar classes or exams as a reliable source of information.
Computer-based legal research remains widely unknown, and therefore, students have noskills in accessing legal research databases. While there are several legal databases which offer
updated domestic statutes, no university in Uzbekistan provides access to paid, research databases
in foreign languages. Hence, students often work with materials from domestic jurisdiction.
Russian speakers may have an advantage of referring additionally to Russian law if they are lucky
to find some relevant books in the library or obtain a research data from the web.
A) Statutes
Instructors regularly refer to domestic statutes such as laws and regulations. In the courseof study, students refer mainly to two legal databases which provide updated laws in Uzbek andRussian languages. Uzbek statutes typically use a complicated conventionalized language, and itis the task of law instructors to clarify to students the particularities of normative-linguistic
conservatism. Interpretation of statutes remains very vague.
B) Textbooks and monographs
Students generally rely on Uzbek and Russian textbooks published locally. 30 Many books
involve common methodological approaches similar to those used in the Soviet legal textbooks.
Such books focus on inherently formal and positivist legal education, or too abstract and extremely
formal judicial opinions.
C) Cases.
Precedents do not play role in legal arguments, proceedings, legal decisions and judgmentsin Uzbekistan because it is a civil law country, and therefore, casebooks or descriptions do not
2930(TSUL via website)
Exception is international law.
12

form a significant part of reading materials. In fact, there is no database accessible for students on
cases and judgments from domestic courts. Only a handful of professors teaching international
private law refer to case law studies to enable students understand practical legal implementation
better (For example; deductive or analogical reasoning).
The primary issue of concern is the situation with absence of adequately written andthoroughly reviewed Uzbek language textbooks. While some students who are generally able tocompensate for the lack of study material in Uzbek by relying on Russian language books andarticles (which are mostly outdated too) the majority of young Uzbek students just entering the
LL.B program are increasingly unable to read in Russian. Even though the situation with teaching
English is relatively better in the UWED, nevertheless, English based legal studies are not assigned
as mandatory reading.
Teaching methods
Teaching law in Uzbek HEI originates from the Soviet system of lecturing of a black letterlaw without necessarily initiating an open discussion among students. Furthermore, lecturer often
must follow the material assigned for the lecture.31 Interactive methods of teaching law remain yet
widely unknown. Recently, some HEI started integrating classes with some elements of Socratic
methods, but the number of specialists who were adequately trained and who can maintaininteresting and focus-oriented discussion among students is critically low. These young scholars
suggest that teaching students about the ways to think like a lawyer is far more efficient thanmaking them automatically learn theories and doctrines. On the other hand, there is an opinion
suggesting that Socratic method might not necessarily always be a good choice as it pushes somestudents with weak communication skills through a stressful experience. Some, senior faculty
members, trained in the Soviet system also often oppose the initiatives of young graduates offoreign universities working in Uzbekistan to introduce Socratic method as a primary teaching
methodic. They also assert that Socratic method does not always prove as a successful model ofclass where the number of students is high or diverse.
Hence, the primary method remains the so-called traditional ex cathedra lecture, where
only one lecturer teaches a large group of students for 90 minutes and expects them to memorize
long texts.32 Whether such lectures are exciting or not, depends heavily on professor’s oral skills.
If professor is good enough to keep students focused and interested in the topic, then lecture may
turn into a very intellectually challenging session. However, if a lecturer lacks goodcommunication or oral skills and does not know how to hold students’ attention, it often results inboring and frustrating monolog where students just physically present. A dominant point ofconcern is that teaching law in Uzbek HEIs rarely generate among students a critical thinking on
the practice of law, skills in legal analysis, abilities to absorb numerous facts and distinguish theirrelevance, ability to present arguments in an appropriate way and understand well societal andindividual problems and think constructively on optimal solutions. In this regard, Socratic method
definitely may have an advantage over the ‘top-down’ 90-minute lecture because informal
discussion often stimulates active learning which develops mentioned essential skills in students.
Lecturers rarely explain or provide materials for the next class beforehand or encourage
students to take adequate preparation. Therefore, many students often come to class unprepared,
31
32

Usually by MOHSSE
Some just dictate from the book or own notes13which makes their performance and understanding abilities low. Lectures in which instructors
repeatedly expose students to memorizing the theoretical concepts are known to be hard toconcentrate. Therefore, the majority of students find such methods boring and eventually fail tounderstand the lecture adequately, and furthermore, successfully pass exam and maintaintheoretical knowledge after their graduation.
To counter mentioned shortcomings, two of the universities teaching law have incorporated
clinical legal education method as a non-mandatory component of the theory-intensive practicemethod. The clinical legal education, widely introduced by the US legal aid entities, is believed to
be a legal, dispute resolution-oriented training which exposes students to theoretical issues studied
in the lectures.
Grading system
Evaluation and grading of students is copied from the Soviet era rating system. According
to each HEI’s present assessment rules, 100 grades is the highest possible mark. The final mark oneach discipline is calculated based on the summing up points for above-mentioned activities. For
example, if a student, by summing up his ongoing assessment, which includes; lecture attendanceand seminars activity, tests and, term exams achieves in total between 86 to 100 grades, it will thencorrespond to excellent mark. 71 to 85 corresponds to good mark, whereas 55 to 70 grades
correspond to satisfactory mark. Hence a minimum, critical score for each subject is 55 andstudents whose progress is below cannot proceed to the next academic year.
Mark
86-100
71-85
55-70
0-54

Grade
Excellent
Good
Satisfactory
Fail

Table 1.3: HE grading system sample

Some short-term academic disciplines, do not stipulate obtaining grades but assessed
through ‘passed’ or ‘failed’ criteria. Some term papers and course works are also evaluatedseparately on the 100 grades scheme. Although grades are generally considered as an essential
indicator of student’s knowledge, employers in Uzbekistan rarely refer to it as a crucial factor.
Therefore, many students do not undergo through a stressful competition of obtaining good marks
as compared in other countries. The more important is to obtain a diploma with a degree whichpaves the way for the future career.
Exams
Depending of the HEI, exams might be oral, written or in the form of tests. Written or oral
exams often consist of several questions on topics covered during the course. Additional questions
outside the course program are not rare. To obtain excellent mark, a student must excellently
response to all questions. Most of the exams remain as closed book sessions. So, students often
have to rely on their memory. For some time, the problem related to the anonymity remained
critical because many students complained about personal problems with some professors and as
a result feared prejudice which could have eventually negatively influence their academic records.
14

Based on teaching methods, exams involve questions evaluating student’s ability tomemorize principles or statutory law itself. Such questions, whether in tests, written or oral exams,
require students to describe and comment on differences in law or define legal definitions of a
specific legal term writhing the statute. Example may include the following semantics:A) Describe the sources of law (For example, international public law)B) Define seven principles of the constitutional law.
C) Why trespassing is different from infringement.
D) Discuss the main components of state mentioned in the course theory of state and law.
E) What is the self-governance according to the Constitution of Uzbekistan?
Later students come up with some more complicated questions where most evaluate theirmemorizing abilities rather than analyzing skills and critical thinking abilities. Some initialattempts to introduce exams based on simulations and situational cases in order to develop students’
inductive reasoning can be observed recently in the TSUL.
Staff profile
The majority of faculty staff in Uzbek HEIs concentrate heavily on education process
which, in turn, makes them limited in terms of research. For example, professors in Japan consider
themselves as educators as well. However, those familiar with Japanese system of HE will agree
that professors do not concentrate much on their students and education process, but rather
involved heavily into their own research activities. Hence, Japanese professors usually work in asenior scholar-oriented society rather than in the student-oriented environment. In order to obtaina tenure, it is essential to demonstrate excellent research achievements and university authorities
rarely accentuate on lecturing skills and communication competence. Once a Japanese scholar
obtains a full-time professor’s position it places him at the top of the university’s hierarchy system
which is very obvious at traditional Japanese universities. Given much freedom, many Japanese
professors who adhere to the traditional thinking automatically distance themselves from students
and junior faculty members. As a rule, they involve deeply into own research and seeking someexternal funding for it. Even though such professors bear the responsibility of teaching andsupervising students, it is de facto a student’s prerogative and obligation to seek professor’s ‘busy’
time to obtain guidance or advice. There is only a handful of professors who continue maintaining
equal relations with junior faculty staff and remember about their obligations with regard to
student’s education.
In Uzbekistan, faculty staff carry a heavy burden of lecturing, research and often
supervising students in non-educational matters. Lecturing is the crucial responsibility which often
takes the most of the time. As long as the majority of curriculum disciplines are obligatory, some
lecturers have to teach up to four or five classes per day and then deal with non-study matters, suchas supervising students’ extracurricular activities (vospitatel’naya rabota) fill in various forms andreports, which naturally leaves no space for research. Furthermore, government often puts
additional burden on law lecturers in the form of seeking their views and written analysis of legal
reforms and projects. Most of such activities have the form of a voluntary ‘activism’ initiated byhigher authorities. There is only a handful of professors who can enjoy comparatively more
freedom in terms of dedicating much time for reading and writing about their own research. Unlike
Japan, lectures in Uzbekistan do not have to demonstrate excellent research achievements. Tenure15

mainly depends on teaching experience and qualities. Graduates with foreign diplomas applying
for teaching positions in HEIs in Uzbekistan have advantage over those with domestic degrees.
Research arguments
Since 1991, the government has been carrying the reforms in HE sectors in rigorous andtop-down manner. The adopted set of laws contains positive intentions including on upgrading thelegal HE’s general infrastructure and raising the quality of degrees by offering new courses.
Despite its far-reaching goals, the practical experience demonstrates that laws addressed vital
matters in very general terms. While laws on HE pawed the way for establishing several HEIs
which offer legal education and expanding existing ones, it did not grant any HEI an adequatelevel of autonomy in such vital matters as curriculum and syllabus design, teaching and assessment,
graduation requirements, and financial matters. Hence, a centralized structure with the publicagencies in the top and law faculties in the very bottom follows a traditional state-centeredapproach to the legal education which widely represents a former socialist doctrine, which is inprinciple, incompatible with the future constitutional goals of placing an individual at the centerof legal relations rather than state. Furthermore, the practice of existing HEIs teaching law,demonstrates that top-down reforms and control over legal education, apart from stagnating effects
on curriculum and teaching, might also leadto scholarly isolation, legal education’s
gradualmonopolization
and
wide
Legal
commercialization.
Scholarship[Academism]
Recently, as a central part of legal
education reform, the government initiated a
massive attraction of working legal
practitioners into the law teaching process in
HEIs. The practice of inviting practitioners
for lecturing in the law faculties is not aLegalnovelty and has been in place in many other
Legal
Professional
CIS countries. The main objective is to fill in
Pedagogy
Practicethe curriculum which is structured around thetheory of law with an essential component of
introducing practical implications of legal
Fig1.3: Author suggests that unless teaching law
profession. What is often missing or omitted(whether law lecture or seminar) does not integrate
while implementing such policy of widescale
all these three components, namely, Legal
attraction of legal practitioners into study
Scholarship [Academism] which represents a highprocess is a well-balanced approach withquality research in law, Legal Pedagogy which
other vital components of legal education. In
implements modern law teaching technics andmethods, and finally Legal Professional Practice that
other words, teaching law by merely
involves adequate expertise in application of law, aintroducing personal legal practice, which isgoal of producing trained lawyer upon graduation
often the case, cannot prove successful unless
HEI is in principle impossible.
instructor integrates another two essential
components, namely, legal pedagogy skills and academism. In sum, teaching law must contain thefollowing components as shown in the figure below and unless there is a lack or gap between anyof the component, it will eventually lead to the failure in preparation of lawyers with adequate
knowledge of law, professional capacities and personal motivations.

16

As it is apparent from the following chapters, present legal education in Uzbekistan is on its
way to review and change, especially after political changes in 2016, and therefore it is difficult topresent comprehensively the current condition of the whole system. Nevertheless, our shrewd
attention to past and present situation is indispensable because it is a cornerstone of law andjudiciary development in Uzbekistan.

17

II. Historical Overview of the Legal Education
Introduction to the Chapter
Prior to the 1918 Revolution, there was no secular legal education in the region. The
madrasa which existed only in big cities offered clerical legal education of Islamic law. The Tsarist
justice organs which in certain period co-existed in the Central Asia with Islamic courts employedlegal practitioners who studied law in Moscow, and other cities of the Russian Empire. Hence,
there was not even a single representative of native population working in the formal legal sector.
The creation of the USSR and transition to the socialism in the early 20 century presupposed total
abolition of old legal framework in favor of a new Soviet justice system and legal education
approach. In this regard, the newly established government took certain steps in organization of
preparatory process of qualified legal professionals capable of promotion the principles of asocialist law. Initially, politics of nurturing future Soviet lawyers came face to face withtremendous barriers, such as lack of adequate number of educators who could teach Socialist law
in the languages of local people, and absence of any law literature. In April 1918, the establishmentof the first secular university in Central Asia and a small law department within its social-economic
faculty paved the way for development of formal legal education in Uzbekistan.
II.1. Pre-Soviet Era
II.1.a. Higher clerical legal study in Madrasa
Up to the beginning of the twentieth century, thehigher legal education in the territories which form thepresent-day Uzbekistan, was purely Islamic andconcentrated around madrasa - the seminaries for maleadults who had obtained elementary knowledge on
writing and reading in Arabic at schools or
mosques. 33 Therefore, enrollment requirements to themadrasas unconditionally included a demonstration ofbasic abilities to read and write in Arabic language.
Young men could commence their studies from 14, andImage 2.1: Abdulaziz Khan Madrasa in
had to spend about 10 or more years to complete all
Bukhara. XVII Century. Facade side.
courses. 34 Traditional education entities in the region,
including madrasa, could exist due to the incomes received from its lands (Vakf) and various
contributions from philanthropists.35 Scholars report that during certain periods, some local rulers
even offered madrasa students stipends to cover certain living expenses.36

There are multiple definitions of madrasa in different sources. The general meaning is – religious school, college,
university, or seminary, where boys of high school age study the Koran, Islamic law, and related subjects. Refer further
to;34
Edward A. Allworth and Edward Allworth, Central Asia, 130 Years of Russian Dominance: A Historical Overview(Duke University Press, 1994).
35
Kobil Ruziev and Umar Burkhanov, “Uzbekistan: Higher Education Reforms and the Changing Landscape Since
Independence,” 2018, 436, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-52980-6_17; O Chehovich ., O Vakfnom Hozyaystve v SredneyAzii., Dokumenti Agrarnyh Otnosheniy v Buharskom Hanstve, (Tashkent, 1954).
36
Anke fon Kugelgen, Legitimizatsiya Sredneaziatskoy Dinastii Mangytov v Proizvedeniyah Ih Istorikov (XVIII-XIX
Vv) (Almaty: Dayk – Press, 2004), 331.
33

18

In madrasa, students specialized apart fromliterature, history and Arabic language, in Koran,
theology and in confessional jurisprudence based on
Muslim law. Madrasas which existed in the medieval
centers of education - in Bukhara 37 , Samarkand andKhiva, inherited a peculiar scholastic legal education
based on studying the theology (interpretation of Koran)
and law (Fikh) in Arabic. Even though education inmadrasa had its specific system it is impossible to trackdown a concrete curriculum that all entities carefully
Image 2.2: Ulugbek Madrasa in Bukhara.
followed in their study programs.
XV Century. Inner side with cells for
As madrasa was a multi-disciplinary college, students.
the course on jurisprudence often followed after student
mastered grammar, and initially stipulated intensive readings on elementary religious law. Having
finished books on elementary law, students then focused on specific readings on civil and criminal
disputes in Islam. The whole course on jurisprudence was often based around several books thatstudent had to regularly read and memorize, often without well-guided interpretation from
instructor. Teaching law in madrasa, strictly followed religious dogmatic principles based on
poorly argumentized dialectics and deduction. Jurisprudence instructors basically used to take ascholastic approach in theological-legal traditions. However, some creative intellectuals who
rejected simple dictation and automatic memorization, often confined themselves to interpretationof provisions and relevant works in their teaching methodic.38

Image 2.4: The collection of Islamic
laws. XIX Century. Khiva.
Image 2.3: An example of excerpt of the
Fikh (Islamic law) in Arabic language.
XIX Century. Khiva.

In various periods, confessional legal education presupposed graduation exams which
would pave the way for a future legal practice. Students who intensively studied a course on
Muslim jurisprudence, usually aimed upon their graduation to occupy legal professions intrinsic
to their communities, such as judge (Kazi) competent to decide upon multi-profile cases or
qualified jurist (Mufti) an Islamic scholar with a competence to interpret Islamic legal provisions
Scholars point that there were around 150 madrasas in Bukhara, and in different periods the number of its students
composed about 30 thousand young men. Refer further to P.P Ivanov., Ocherki Po Istorii Sredney Azii (XVI- Seredina
XIX Veka) (M: Izdanie Vostochnoy lit-ri, 1958), 106–108.
38
Adam Mez, D. S. Margoliouth, and Salahuddin Khuda tr Bakhsh, The Renaissance of Islam, 1937, 179; George
Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West (Edinburgh University Press, 1981),
174.
37

19

Image 2.5: Sample ordonnances of the Khiva Khan. XVII Century. Khiva.

and provide opinio juris (mainly on family law or Sharia law). Local rulers (khans) often reliedon such opinion in their ordonnances and decrees.
Under the Tsarist Russia39, as legal disputes were left to local discretion, the functioning ofmadrasa was left nearly untouched.40 When Bolsheviks sporadically came to power,41 their mostefforts to immediately re-organize traditional legal educational system in Turkestan did not provesuccessful because of the unpopularity with local population, and madrasa, for some time,
continued to exist due to the support from charitable donations provided by private individuals.
However, as pro-Soviet authorities shaped and widely manifested their concrete future vision ofstatehood with no place for religion, material support for madrasa was gradually banned, andtraditional legal education started vanishing.42 Hence, in the context of the Soviet baked atheist
politics and wide Sovietization of the region, public education, including legal, started slowly
gravitating from confessional towards highly anti-religious.43 In fact, by 1920, there were only 75
madrasa students in whole Turkestan.44
In the period 1919 - 1928, when the future of the Soviet power in the Central Asian region
was yet in its formation stage, most of the legal disputes among native populations were informally
resolved by the Kaziy - Sharia courts. The Soviet authorities also reluctantly recognized the
traditional (Islamic) civil rights and functioning of some confessional but loyal legal scholars. A
very small number of traditional madrasahs still functioned and prepared a very limited numberof practitioners of Sharia law. Even in the city like Tashkent, populated predominantly by peopleof Slavic origin, the minority Muslim population often preferred resolving their family and civil
disputes according to the norms of Sharia law.
Hence, for the first ten years of the Soviet rule in Turkestan, Islamic legal practices could
still preserve its influence, however only in those cases where its norms did not contradict to therevolutionary propaganda of the proletariat. 45 In other words, there was a dualism of the legal
The legal education system of the Tsarist Russia itself resembled more to that of Austria and Germany and wasequivalent to the Western model.
40
Ostroumov, Islamovedenie. Vvedenie v Kurs Islamovedeniya. (Tashkent, 1914), 208.
41
Before the territorial delimitation of 1924 which gave rise to the establishment of the Soviet Central Asia, and Uzbek
USSR as one of its union republics.
42
On the decision to transfer financial support (vakf) from confessional education institutions to non-confessionalrefer to; Kommunisticheskaya Partiya Uzbekistana v Rezolutsiyah I Resheniyah S’yezdov I Plenumov TsK. Tom 1,
1925-1937, Tashkent 1987, 31-36.
43
Rezoluytsiya 1-go S’yezda Kommunisticheskoy Partii Turkestana on 6-12 Fevralya 1925 goda “Anti-religioznaya
propaganda,” n.d.; Rezoluytsiya 7-go S’yezda Kommunisticheskoy Partii Turkestana on 11-16 Marta 1924 “Ob antireligioznoy Propagande v Usloviyah Turkestana,”.
44
Tsentral’niy Gosudarstvenniy Archiv (TsGA RUz) Respubliki Uzbekistan, Fond R-17, Opis’ 1, Delo 1062, List 19.
45
Katlijn Malfliet and Erik De Maeyer, Legal Perspectives: The Legal Profession and Human Rights in Uzbekistan(Garant, 1999).
39

20

system - an unusual coexistence of the emerging Soviet and Islamic legal practices. The Soviet
authorities realized that sudden shift towards the Socialist oriented law could raise additionallynegative consequences among the local population who preserved their own rules for centuries
and even during the Tsarist era. Furthermore, in the context of the yet poorly-formulated Soviet
legal educational doctrine and a handful of relevant scholars in the Turkestan, it was nearly
impossible to immediately replace or retrain existing local lawyers. In fact, up to 1925, there wasno higher educational entity to train Soviet law in the region.
In 1928, the Ministry of Justice of the Uzbek SSR (Narkomat Yustitsii) and the Ministry of
Education of the Uzbek SSR (Narkompros) in their joint meeting recognized any form ofconfessional education as socially harmful and inadaptable to the realities of the new socialist
state.46 Such decision gave rise to a reform which eventually eradicated legal education based ontheological doctrine and replaced it with the one based on socialist values.47
A reform of legal education pursued a goal of creating a new legal profession profile
associated with pro-revolutionary and proletarian backgrounds. A sharp deficit in lawyers among
the working class (proletariat), resulted initially in creation part-time, non-regular and intensive
programs aimed at quick production of legal professionals capable of performing administrativeprocedural functions state-administrative organs, state planning and other organizations.
II.2 The Soviet Era
II.2.a. The first secular university and formation peculiarities of its law faculty
Initially, only a handful of republics in theformer USSR maintained HEIs which offeredhigher legal training.48 While only some of them
acted as specialized law institutes, most were
small or medium-size law departments (faculties)
in the universities. Some parts of the USSR,
mainly Slavic and Baltic republics experienced
relatively stable legal education and boom in
number of scholars. On the other hand, the Soviet Image 2.6: TashGU in 1980th. Façade.
Central Asia and Caucasian regions faced adesperate shortage in both.
The country’s first modern and secular university - the Turkestan Peoples’ University
appeared in 1918, before the national - territorial delimitation took place.49 In 1920, V.I. Lenin
signeda decree adopted by the Council of People’s Commissars about organizing the Turkestan State
University in Tashkent, which in fact, reorganized the former Turkestan Peoples’ University.50 In
July 1923, local Bolsheviks, taking into consideration the fact that it was the only HE entity in theSoviet Central Asia, renamed it into the First Central Asian State University (Short Russian
abbreviation - SAGU). This name more clearly reflected the object and purpose of the university
which admitted students not only from the Uzbek SSR but also from neighboring soviet Central
Tsentral’niy Gosudarstvenniy Archiv (TsGA RUz) Respubliki Uzbekistan, Fond R-94, Opis’ 1, Delo 418, List 15.
Shigabdinov R, Konfessional’naya Islamskaya Shkola v Uzbekistane 1917- 1921.
48
V.A. Tomsinov, “Crime Called Legal Department”, Zakon 3, 2009, p 32.
49
The idea of establishing HEI in Turkestan appeared much earlier in 1913.
50
Decret ob Uchrejdenii Turkestanskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta v g. Tashkente (Sovnarkom, 1920).
46
47

21

Asian counterparts, and subsequently, even from the socialist-friendly countries of Asia and Africa.
Later in 1960, the name of the university changed to Tashkent State University named after V.I.
Lenin (Short Russian abbreviation - TashGU). It took many years of mutual attempts of scholars
from various parts of the former USSR and Tashkent to organize the work and administration ofthis university.
In 1921, the university integrated a Faculty of Social Sciences (Fakul’tet ObshestvennyhNauk) which included the Institute of Economy and Institute of Law. It was a pioneer step towards
introducing modern, non-clerical legal education. In 1924, the Bolsheviks replaced this facultywith a new Faculty of Local Economy and Law (Fakul’tet Mestnogo Hozyaystva i Prava). Suchmodification slightly increased the number of students and legal disciplines, but did not result inany major structural changes. In 1928, it was renamed to the Faculty of Soviet Economy and Law(Fakul’tet Sovetskogo Hozyaystva i Prava). This faculty represented a merge of two separate
departments - economics, which focused particularly on the economy and administration (national
economic planning), and law, which specialized in teaching legal disciplines of the transition
period. One of the bright representatives of the Soviet legal intelligentsia - N.L. Lappo-Danilevskiy
contributed reasonably in terms of creation and development of this faculty. Eventually, in 1947
the authorities created in the SAGU a separate Faculty of Law (Yuridicheskiy Fakul’tet) with a
primary aim to train legal scholars.51
Apart from SAGU, in 1930, Bolsheviks established another HEI - the Central Asian
Communist University named after V.I. Lenin with a department of Soviet public administrationand law. It also took participation in preparation of Soviet lawyers however, only until 1934 when
this university was reorganized into the Higher Agricultural School and redirected its focus fromlaw to the economic sector.
Similarly, in 1931, a new HEI - the Scientific-Research Institute of Soviet Public
Administration and Law named after Djahon Abidova came to existence with a primary aim totrain qualified judges, prosecutors, bureaucrats of state apparatus, as well as scientific cadres in
the field of state and law. A year later, in 1932, authorities established another HEI - the Instituteof Public Administration. In 1937, these two HEIs merged into the Institute of Soviet Law which
in 1938 was again renamed into the All-Union Tashkent Institute of Law subjected directly to thecompetence of the Commissariat of Justice, and later in 1945 to the Commissariat of Education.
Eventually, in order to avoid any possible parallelism regarding research activities and toconcentrate all legal scholars in one entity, in 1955 the All-Union Tashkent Institute of Law was
included into the Faculty of Law of the SAGU. Since then and up to the fall of the USSR, thefaculty remained as the largest and the most authoritative higher legal education school in thewhole central Asian region.52
Some scholars and practitioners who came to Tashkent from various parts of the former
Imperial Russia, embarked on teaching the law in the SAGU in 1920-30s. Among law lecturers,
there were many well-known specialists of various legal fields who were left from the previous
generation of Tsarist legal scholars, including; I.N. Trepitsyn, A.M. Vinaver, V.A. Kransnokutskiy,
N.N. Polyanskiy, I.I. Kryltsov, A.A. Piontkovskyi, S.P. Pokrovskiy, N.N. Fioletov, L.D.
Uspenskiy, B.M. Sobberey, B.L. Manelis, S.E. Avruh, G.M. Arenberg, M.D. Lutskiy.53 In general,
Agzamhodjaev and Blinder, Tashkentskiy Gosudarstvenniy Universitet Imeni V.I. Lenina. Yuridicheskiy Fakul’tet.
8-10
52
Ibid. 853
A. Agzamhodjaev and B. Blinder, Yuridicheskoe Obrazovanie v Uzbekistane (Tashkent: O`zbekistaon, 1990), 8–
14.
51

22

while browsing the archival data on initial law teaching staff, one is likely to find many educatorsfrom Jewish, German and later, Slavic backgrounds as listed above. Notably, many of thosebrilliant scholars became pioneers in paving the way for secular legal education in Central Asia.
The newly emerging Soviet authorities often considered them unreliable (or bourgeoisie
intelligentsia), because these professors demonstrated a hidden, or sometimes clear antipathy
towards Marxism and proletarian law. Furthermore, in their legal pedagogy, they mostly followed
the Tsarist legal curriculum and often did not hide their pessimism about the future of the emerging
concept of socialist law. Nevertheless, participation of these scholars in the initial legal education
process positively contributed to the general legal knowledge and skills of many graduates. Indeed,
having no other adequate alternatives in circumstances of limited human resources, the Soviet
authorities had to cope up with its anti-bourgeois sentiments and employ these professors at theinitial stage of formation of the newly emerging doctrine of the Soviet socialist legal education.
Furthermore, it was the period when most of these and other scholars started creating initialpublications on the Soviet doctrinal and practical legal issues and local impacts. Such publications
included books, commentaries and research articles in various fields of the Soviet legal science,
namely; state and law, family law, civil law, criminal law, criminalistics, land law, labor law,notary law, and many other scientific works dedicated to the problems of the socialism transition
period. Publishing on Soviet law in Russian and Uzbek languages became largely possible due tothe launching the Justice Bulletin produced by the Legal Publishing Agency attached to theCommissariat of Justice of the Uzbek SSR.54
The initial unpreparedness of the study process and absence in the legal education’s generalscope of a well-formulated objectives subsequently stimulated the Soviet government to initiate indifferent periods a series of reforms aimed at re-conceptualizing the curriculum and study processof the law departments within the whole USSR, including in Tashkent, so as to make it more
concrete and focus oriented. These reforms each time drastically changed the profile of legal
education in the Uzbek SSR making it more secular in the shape and ideological in its nature.
II.2.b. The 1926-1936 Pashukanis syllabi
While the Marxist theory of state and law profoundly affected the shape of an emerging
Soviet legal education doctrine, until the end of 1920s the faculty teaching staff included nonMarxian, quasi-Marxian and Marxian followers who made the study process diverse and creative.55
E.B. Pashukanis - a charismatic and brilliant theorists of the ‘commodity-exchange school’ of
Marxist jurisprudence performed the central role among other Soviet legal scholars, in exercisinga predominant influence on the Soviet legal education.56 Pashukanis initiated a campaign against
Agzamhodjaev and Blinder, Tashkentskiy Gosudarstvenniy Universitet Imeni V.I. Lenina. Yuridicheskiy Fakul’tet,
10.
55
E. I. Kel’man, O Sisteme Yuridicheskogo Obrazovaniya, 1926; A. A. Plotnieks, Stanovlenie i Razvitie MarksistskoLeninskoy Obshey Teorii Prava v SSSR, 1978, 114; M. M. Isaev, “O Vysshem Yuridicheskom Obrazovanii RSFSR,”
Sovetskoe Pravo No. 6 (1926): 116–118.
56
On the commodity exchange school in the Marxist jurisprudence and withering away from law in the USSR referfurther to, Michael Head, Evgeny Pashukanis: A Critical Reappraisal (Routledge, 2007); Stephen J. Powell, “Legal
Nihilism of Pashukanis” University of Florida Law Review 20 (1967–1968): 18-32; Bjarne Melkevik, Marksizm i
Filosofiya Prava. Sluchay Pashukanisa (Buenos Books America Llc, 2016);
See R. Sharlet ‘Pashukanis and the Withering away of Law in the USSR’ in Sheila Fitzpatrick, Cultural Revolution
in Russia, 1928-1931 (Indiana University Press, 1984); William E. Butler, “Soviet International Legal Education: The
Pashukanis Syllabus,” Review of Socialist Law 2 (1976): 80.
54

23

the Tsarist and other Western legal models by referring to it as bourgeois, and constructed theinitial syllabi as laid down in the theory of state and law according to thoughts of Marx, Engels,and Lenin. 57 Pashukanis and his adherents elaborated the ‘Doctrine of the Soviet State’ whichstressed more political rather than legal settings and presupposed that ‘national economic plan’should eventually replace the law with all its philosophical implications.58 Therefore, in the initial
Pashukanis’s syllabi, economic and administrative law superseded civil law and transformed
traditional settings of criminal law.59
The Moscow based Communist Academy headed by Pashukanis took a leading role inpreparation and implementation of the union-wide syllabi. The curriculum included, national
economy and historical materialism, the Soviet constitution, criminal law, economic law, land law,administrative law, family law, the courts, criminal procedure, and cooperative and trade union
movement. 60 This curriculum also phased out legal-oriented studies on constitutional law andinternational law, and focused exceptionally on the ‘political infrastructure’.61 Eventually, such
curriculum and Pashikanis’s widely promoted idea of ‘legal nihilism’ on the expected demise of
all law in the socialist state resulted in a rapid decline in number of students wishing to study law.
Hence, the classic Marxist doctrine of withering away of state and law, which was actively
supported by authoritative Soviet lawyers and which prognosed a demise of law itself in the nearest
future, played a significant reason for ignoring initially the Soviet legal education and profession.62
Even though Bolsheviks created specialized law institutes and faculties within universities acrossthe Soviet Union in the mid-1920s, the admissions numbers remained dramatically low. As an
example, there were only 30 students studying law in the SAGU in 1921.63 Unpopularity of legal
education was additionally caused by the fact that all key positions in the state apparatus were held
by Bolshevik activists, often with a poor or no educational background at all. Furthermore, the law
itself was almost replaced by often radical ad hoc directives and instructions of the Communist
Party and other Soviet political organs.64
In the beginning of 1930s, Pashukanis and a group of associated Soviet legal scholars had
to reconsider some of the views towards ‘withering of law in the USSR’. They decided to modify
their theory by asserting that “state would rapidly wither away... but the flexible and expedientdimensions of law [will remain] as an instrument of revolutionary policy rather than its stabilizingrole”. 65 However, by 1936 the government discredited ideas of Pashukanis, 66 including a

William Elliott Butler, Soviet Law (Butterworths, 1983), 63.
In particular, the national economic planning, industrialization and collectivization on a wholly commuted scale, as
well as expectation that the Soviet Union would soon transform into a classless society will pave the way for law tobe replaced by such a plan and the coercive structure. Butler, “Soviet International Legal Education,” 81.
59
Detailed accounts provided in, ‘Pashukanis and the Rise of Soviet Marxist Jurisprudence, 1924-1930’, Soviet Union
I, (1974) as cited from Butler, Soviet Law, 63.
60
A.F. Shebanov, Yuridicheskie vyshsie uchebnie zavedenia [Legal Educational Institutes] (Moscow: Higher School,
1963), 44.
61
Butler, Soviet Law, 63; Head, Evgeny Pashukanis, 93.
62
On Marx refer to, Edward Lea Johnson, An Introduction to the Soviet Legal System (Methuen, 1969), 69-70.
63
Agzamhodjaev and Blinder, Tashkentskiy Gosudarstvenniy Universitet Imeni V.I. Lenina. Yuridicheskiy Fakul’tet.
864George E. Glos, “Soviet Law and Soviet Legal Education in an Historical Context: An Interpretation,” Review ofSocialist Law 15 (1989): 255.
65
Butler, Soviet Law, 63.
66
On Pashikanis, Krilenko and other’s discreditation, refer further to A. Y. Vyshinkiy, Doklad Vyshinskogo, Osnovnie
Zadachi Nauki Sovetskogo Sotsialisticheskogo Prava (Moskva: Yuridicheskoe izdatel’stvo, 1938), 9-15.
57
58

24

replacement of a civil law with a course in administrative-economic law, and his nihilist views on
the rights of the individual in the society where socialist progresses as counter-revolutionary.67
II.2.c. The 1937-1960 Vyshinskiy’s structure of the Soviet legal education
In 1937, the Soviet government, in light of its recent criticism on Pashukanis’s legal
curriculum, initiated a reorganization of legal education system. A successor of Pashukanis, A.Y.
Vyshinskiy - a very controversial personality in the Soviet history, took a leadership in the policyof reshaping the Soviet legal profession with a view to ‘reanimate’ higher legal education andensure a policy of ‘stability of laws’.68 Initial reforms targeted centralization of legal education by
tying it further to state organs and abolishing any freedom regarding the curriculum and finances.
In line with the policy of centralization, by 1937, the People’s Commissariat of Justice of the
USSR, and the Committee for Higher Schools [Education] of People’s Commissars of the USSR
assumed principal responsibilities and control over legal education in the USSR.69 In Uzbek SSR,
the local Commissariat of Justice (a prototype of MOJ), and the Commissariat for Education (aprototype of MOHSSE) directly exercised a dual control over the education process at then the
Faculty of Local Economy and Law of the SAGU.70
The Commissariat of Justice appointed the director or dean of the faculty, set up an
admissions quota, and placed an order for specification and skills of future graduates. The
Committee for Higher Schools, in close cooperation with the Commissariat of Justice, prepared acurriculum, textbooks, courses of law, as well as defined who and how will conduct actual legal
teaching.71 Hence, the Commissariat of Justice acted as a principal body which placed and order,
and the Committee for Higher Schools as a supervisor of legal education process. In suchcircumstances, HEIs did not have much space to alter educational process independently.
Both male and female candidates between 17-34 who obtained middle school certificate (atotal of ten years of school education) could apply for law faculty of the SAGU. Candidates of nonproletarian, peasant background could not apply for HEIs, untill the government lifted such
restriction at the end of 1935. Entrance exam included the Russian language (grammar andliterature); mathematics, and political education (classics of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin). 72
Candidates who demonstrated the highest results in the entrance exams secured their placement in
the law faculty. Some candidates with excellent middle school progress record entered without
taking admissions exam. Worthless to mention that initially a profession of lawyer in the Soviet
Central Asia was only accessible to the Slavic population as the whole education process was in
Russian language. Many enrolling students often combined their legal job with a legal study.
Vyshinskiy restored the civil law as a separate legal discipline in the curriculum which
formerly offered only a short course on economic-administrative law. In general, a newly formedfour-year curriculum offered a dichotomy between general and specialized training. The generalcourse included mainly the politically oriented disciplines, like Marxism-Leninism,73 or Soviet
John N. Hazard, “Legal Education in the Soviet Union,” Wisconsin Law Review 1938 (1938): 572.
The USSR adopted its 1936 Constitution which symbolized a transition to the ‘policy of stable laws’. In other words,
it symbolized rejection of Pashukanis’s views of ‘withering away of law’ and ‘legal nihilism’. Butler, Soviet Law, 62.
69
Sobranie Zakonov SSSR (1936) I, No 40, art 338 and No 27, art 250, 1936.
70
Ibid.
71
Butler, Soviet Law, 64; Hazard, “Legal Education in the Soviet Union,” 563.
72
“Sparvochnik dlya postupauyshih v Yuridicheskie Instituti. [Reference Book for Persons Entering Judicial Institues]”(Yuridicheskoe izdatel’stvo N.K Yu. SSSR. Moskwa, 1937).
73
Application by Lenin the Marxian method of analysis of historical economic conditions.
67
68

25

Communist party, whereas specialized training focused on teaching law as such.74 In turn, legal
curriculum stipulated a wide range of legal disciplines offering a general knowledge to students
who wished to work as judges, prosecutors75, and practicing advocates, and those who intended towork as a lawyer or labor inspector at the economic sector.76
Third
Year
First Year
Bookkeeping
Political
Political
andCriminal Law
Economy;Economy;Accounting;Labor Law;
Historyof the History
Civil Law;
Land- ofand Law;
Communist
Criminal Law; State
Collective
SovietPublicParty;
Civil
Farm Law;
Law;
TheoryofProcedure;
Criminal
State
and Law; Philosophy;
Criminal
Procedure;
Military
Military
Procedure;
Civil
Science;
Science;
Court
Procedure;
Latin;
Latin;
Statistics;
Foreign
Foreign
Foreign
Foreign
Language;
Language;
Language;
Language;

Third Year

Second Year
Political
Economy;Philosophy;
History ofState and Lawof the USSR;
Public Law of
Capitalist
States;SovietAdministrative
Law;
Foreign
Language;

Leninism;
History of
Political
Science;Financial Law;
Judicial
Institutions;
Criminal Law;
Civil Law;
Foreign
Language;

Bookkeeping
andAccounting;
Civil Law;
Criminal Law;
Civil
Procedure;
Criminal
Procedure;
Court
Statistics;
Foreign
Language;

Criminal Law
Labor Law;
LandCollective
Farm Law;
Criminal
Procedure;
Civil
Procedure;
Foreign
Language;

Fourth Year

Civil Law;
Criminal Law;
Labor Law;
LandCollective
Farm Law;
Criminology

Criminology;
Court
Medicine;
Court
Psychiatry;International
Public Law;
Conflict of
Laws;

Table 2.1: A typical Soviet law curriculum. One year is divided into two semesters.
Curriculum contains both general and specialized disciplines. (1937-38).77

A top-down, ex-cathedra lecture remained the dominant method of teaching law. Students
had to compulsorily attend all lectures and take notes (konspekts) which they later used in thepractice-oriented, discussion sessions and exams. Faculty members held weekly office hours forproviding additional advice and extra-training to students. As a part of curriculum, law students
also had a chance to participate at open trials a couple of times per year or directly discuss casedetails with judges or prosecutors visiting law faculty for lectures. It was also a period when law
faculties across the USSR started experimenting with dispatching students to regular internships(praktika) to courts, prosecutors’ offices and enterprises to take direct participation in legal affairs.
Such training proved effective because many students after returning to the study process brought
many cases in their mind which they later often raised in classroom discussions.
In the after-war period, the government slightly reformed the legal education and opened
several new law faculties in other territories of the Soviet Union. In general, the admissions,curriculum, teaching methods and graduation requirements remained untouched except
Hazard, “Legal Education in the Soviet Union.”, 569.
However, some statistical data shows that between 1930-40 more than a half of the judges and prosecutors in the
USSR did not have a higher legal education. Despite continuous efforts taken by the Soviet authorities to train
professional lawyers, many could not graduate law faculties and continued working without proper qualification.
Despite efforts taken, by 1935 many state officials working in state law enforcement bodies still did not have anadequate legal education. (55-60 percent of prosecutors did not graduate from law institutes; 40 percent of judges did
not have legal education). However, this fact did not always raise serious concerns, as person’s social class background(being from proletarian background) and revolutionary views for the law were always perceived as the most importantfactor rather that his legal skills and ability to apply the law properly. Soviet Justice, No 14, 1937.
76
By 1936, there were four types of legal education entities to become legal professionals; (1) Higher Judicial Courses(for top level officials), (2) Law departments of universities (For example, in SAGU), (3) law institutes and (4)Moscow-based Central Distance - Learning Institute of Soviet Law. Furthermore, to train to train ‘low-level’ legal
professionals, such as; court clerks, referents of the prosecutor’s office, secretaries of courts and other technical staff
in the administrative and juridical organizations, the so-called “elementary legal education system” was created. Referfurther to, I.I. Oleynik ., O.U. Oleynik, Firming of system of training of legal professions in Soviet Russia After V.I
Lenin, 2005, Ivanovo State Energetic University, 144.
77
Hazard, “Legal Education in the Soviet Union.” 571
74
75

26

introduction of several new disciplines such as Roman law and Scientific Communism. Hence, thedevelopment under the Vyshinskiy have shaped the actual form of the Soviet legal education and,in to some extent, stipulated its further development trajectory.78
II.2.d. The 1960-1980 legal education
Until 1960, for many young people from the whole Central Asia and other regions of theformer USSR wishing to study law and obtain their legal profession, the Local Economy and Law
faculty of the SAGU was the only suitable option. In 1960, after specialized higher education
entities started opening in other parts of the Soviet Central Asia, the SAGU was renamed to the
Tashkent State University named after V. I. Lenin (Tashkentskiy Gosudarstvenniy Universitet(TashGU)). Although during this period, law faculties appeared in Dushanbe, Almaty, Ashgabat,and Frunze (former name of Bishkek) the renowned faculty of law of the TashGU remained as theoldest and most authoritative in the Central Asian region regarding its outstanding professors andlegal research achievements.
Since the end of 1950s and up to 1973, the Communist Party gave more attention to thelegal education reform and adopted several decrees, such as the Statute on Higher Educational
Institutions of 1969, and the Fundamental Principles on Public Education of 1973.79 The systemof legal education underwent further centralization regarding it top-down management by theSoviet ministries of education and justice. Furthermore, it was the time when law faculty faced an
influx of young scholars who were educated and professionally raised in socialist legal realities.
Furthermore, in 1974 authorities created the Faculty of Law in the Samarkand State
University, and in 1977 a small department of law within the Faculty of History in the Nukus State
University. In 1977, the Tashkent Legal Vocational School, a non-HE entity, started implementing
its training program for legal clerks and court secretaries. Earlier in 1971, the MOJ of the Uzbek
SSR established special Qualification Training Courses for its staff. The Faculty of Law of the
TashGU played a dominant role in elaborating study programs and educational process in all
mentioned entities. Moreover, the teaching staff in all mentioned entities involved mainly thegraduates of the faculty.80
Admissions rules remained the same with the exception of admissions exam which now
included the Russian or Uzbek language and literature (written and oral), history of the USSR
(oral), and oral exam in one of foreign languages (English, German or French).81 The length ofeducation ranged between four to six years depending directly on the form of education; Full time
which could be completed in four years, evening education took usually five to six years, anddistance education - not less than six years.82 Most of the short-term programs which existed before
and aimed at professional legal training or re-training were terminated.
As everything in the former USSR, the admissions to the TashGU’s faculty of law was a
subject to a governmental plan (quota) that determined the fixed number of admissions placementsin the regional perspective. Certain groups, for example, military personnel could enjoy a
Decree on the Broadening and Improvement of Legal Education (Central Executive Committee of the CPSU, 1946).
Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on Fundamental Principles of Legislation of the USSR and theUnion Republics on Public Education, 392 (Ved. SSSR, 1973); The Statute on Higher Educational Institutions of the
USSR (Ved. SSSR, 1969); Refer also to the statute, On Strengthening the Bond between School and Life, 1958.
80
Agzamhodjaev and Blinder, Yuridicheskoe Obrazovanie v Uzbekistane.
81
Order of the USSR Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education on Rules of Admission into HEI of the
USSR (Biulleten’ MinVisshego i Srednego Spetsial’nogo Obrazovaniya SSSR No 5, 1980).
82
Via corresponding courses of institution based in Moscow.
78
79

27

preferential treatment and enroll directly without exam and regardless of the admissions quota.83
As elsewhere in the former USSR, the education, was free of payment, therefore students of the
Law faculty had no requirement to cover their admissions or tuition fees. In turn, the government
paid a stipend which could be decreased or entirely eliminated if student fell back in his grades.
The Communist Party introduced into curriculum on a mandatory basis a great number of
non-legal disciplines, mainly those dealing with Marxism-Leninism, such as; political economy
and the history of the communist party, scientific communism, fundamentals of scientific atheism,
history of political doctrines, philosophy, logic, foreign language. 84 Legal pillar included; thetheory of state and law, general history of state and law, Roman law, Soviet state (constitutional)
law, fundamentals of the Soviet system, state law of foreign socialist states, state law of bourgeois
countries, Soviet administrative law, Soviet civil law, civil procedure law, Soviet criminal law,criminal procedure law, criminology, criminalistics, prosecutors surveillance in the USSR, courts
and justice in the USSR, Soviet labor law, family law, and some other legal disciplines.
At the end of each course, students had to take oral examinations in every discipline taught
and, in case if successfully passed, could complete the whole course and proceed to the next.
Exams consisted of several theoretical questions derived from lectures and written on cards which
student had to choose randomly. On a designated day, a student appeared before the board ofprofessors, picked a card with questions and, after taking some preparations, had to provide oral
answer. In the final year, students had to draft a graduation paper in their chosen areas and defend
in in front of the board of professors and lecturers. As a part of the requirement for graduation
students took state exams on the history of the communist party, theory of state and law, Soviet
criminal law, Soviet civil law and one legal discipline depending on the major.
In the former Soviet Union, the government implemented a graduates’ employment
allocation system (Raspredelenie) which assigned every person who had just graduated from the
HEI a job placement according to his specialization but in a randomly chosen region of the country.
Except only a handful of excellent law graduates, others had no right to choose character of job
and its location. Once assigned the job, every graduate, whether he liked the job or its location or
not had to work in assigned place obligatorily at least for three years. Upon completion of thisperiod, a person could continue working in the same place or change a job according to own
preferences. Usually, given a shortage of qualified lawyers in Central Asian region, many law
graduates from other former union republics often received their initial job assignments in thisregion.
The 1960s was exactly the period when most of the Soviet codified legislation came into
force. For example, civil and civil-procedure codes, criminal and criminal-procedural codes, laborcode, and administrative offences’ code influenced the legal education process which hereinafter
focused more on the system of codified law and unified, mechanical application of its provisions.85
To be more specific, the curriculum of legal subjects focused basically on following the system ofcodes and unified application of law.86 Most of the specialists after graduating the course, could
actually rely on their knowledge and skills obtained at the university because for the rest of their
Refer further to details to, Glos, “Soviet Law and Soviet Legal Education in an Historical Context.”, 258.
Curriculum included some social and humanitarian studies: Philosophy, logic, foreign language, political economy
and history of the Communist Party... A. F. Shebanov, Legal Educational Institutes., 151-152
85
The adoption of a number of the Soviet codes (Civil, Civil-Procedure, Criminal, Criminal-Procedure, Labor,
Administrative Offences Code) in 1960s is known as a period of formation of the Soviet legal doctrine and legal
educational model.
86
Furthermore, the Soviet law curriculum devoted many subjects and auditory hours to the non-legal, but MarxismLeninism (the Communist) ideology-oriented disciplines.
83
84

28

professional career as judges and prosecutors, they just mechanically applied a codified law which
remained constantly stable into actual cases. As the Soviet law did not presuppose application or
analysis of the case law, it made the life of legal professional easier and less stressed as comparedto the lawyers in the Western hemisphere.
II.2.e. Numbers and Law chairs
While in 1921 there were 30 students studying law in TashGU, in 1923, 71 students
graduated with a degree in law. The rapid growth in numbers came in the post-war period, forexample in the 1959-60 academic year the total of 1250 students studied in the law faculty. In
general, up to the end of 1980, the law faculty experienced the numbers boom in its admissions
with 4107 students in the faculty in 1980 as the top record. To accommodate the needs of thefaculty for training such a big number of students, the law faculty created three departments; incampus (Ochnoe otdelenie), off-campus (Zaochnoe otdelenie) and evening depertment (Vechernee
otdelenie). While in-campus was a conventional study program which presupposed a student’s
obligatory participation in all classes which started in the morning and finished in the evening, inthe off-campus program, enrolled students studied law while continuing their job in law-related
public agencies. As a rule, off-campus students visited the faculty only several times per academic
year to participate in short-term courses and pass relevant exams. The evening program offeredlegal education for people who usually worked in the morning and thus, could not take classes
except the evening time. While it was convenient in terms of time and provided intensive courses
in law, its length was one year longer than that of in-campus. 87

Increased admissions numbers and the scope of scientific legal work resulted similarly inthe rapid growth of faculty staff. (Refer to the figure below)

87

Agzamhodjaev and Blinder, Tashkentskiy Gosudarstvenniy Universitet Imeni V.I. Lenina. Yuridicheskiy Fakul’tet.
29

Fig 2.2 Number of faculty staff between 1960-90
Source: Yuridicheskoe Obrazovanie v Uzbekistane (1990) 30-31.
118

120
100
80
60
40
20
0

94

53

33

39

10
6
0

32

17
0

0

1960

24
52

0

1979-80

1989-90
1979-801960

1989-90

Within the faculty, headed by a dean, a key structural unit were the chairs of law createdfor particular branches or legal disciplines. A char was headed by professor who grouped aroundhimself associate professors and law lecturers of a similar specialization. By 1980, there were 12
chairs which integrated mainly disciplines on Marxist - Leninist history and theory of state andlaw as well as interdisciplinary law chairs. (Refer to the table below)

Name of the chair
Theory of State and Law
History of State and Law
State Law and Soviet Public Administration
Administrative and Financial Law
Civil and Economic Law
Civil Process
Labor Law
Environmental and Agricultural Law
Criminal Law
Criminal Process
Criminalistics andSoviet Law

Number of staff
10
7
11
11
11
7
7
7
14
16
11
7

Table 2.2: Chairs and number of staff (1990). (By 1960 there was also Land and Kolkhoz Law Chair) Notably,
scientific work of the faculty fell within the competence of the so-called Faculty Council composed of 30 people.
Source: Compiled from Yuridicheskoe Obrazovanie v Uzbekistane (1990) 31-43.

II.2.f. Methodological aspects of education
Study process was divided into two aspects general and specialized training. While generaltraining included social-humanitarian (predominantly non-legal) disciplines, a specialized part
focused on legal training and contained three categories: state law, courts and prosecution, andeconomic law. Specialized training started from the third year up to which student mainly focused30

on general subjects and Marxism-Leninism oriented training as an essential element discovering
the object and purpose of the whole socialist legal system.
Teaching methods included a top-down ex-cathedra lecturing. By referring to the numberof guidelines and publications on the law teaching methodic from local scholars in both Russian
and Uzbek languages, one may observe that faculty paid a sufficient attention to the control on thequality of teaching. 88 It became a long-standing tradition at the faculty to organize annual
scientific-theoretical conferences dedicated to the improvement of law teaching methods.
Furthermore, leading scholars frequently organized special courses and critical discussion sessions
for young lecturers to level up their skills in teaching legal disciplines. Many lecturers underwent
internships in the Faculty of Law in the Moscow State University and Soviet law-enforcement
agencies. Such an active approach greatly contributed at the end of 1980s to introduce certain new
methods in into the study process, in particular, independent study, as well as laboratory andpractical activities.89
An important aspect of successful teaching law in TashGU was often associated with thefact that majority of its staff took frequent participation in travaux preparatoires of many
fundamental laws, including the 1978 Constitution of the Uzbek SSR. Furthermore, many law
scholars working in TashGU were members of various working and review commissions on
emerging and existing legal codes. A rich experience gained from such membership often served
as an invaluable material for lectures and seminar discussions with students.90
II.2.g. Scientific research and international cooperation.
In the process of research, legal scholars paid their main attention to the problems of thesocialist law and state, Soviet democracy, and organizational aspects of the public institutions.
Many scholars also researched the issues of history of state and law, especially the Soviet statehoodbuilding in Uzbekistan, the formation of its administrative units and legal-political developmentof the Karakalpak autonomous SSR. Such a state-centrist legal research often followed strict
guidelines and objectives highlighted in historical decisions of the Communist Party of the USSR,
and public speeches of the Secretary-General.
The faculty contained a special organ, the Research Commission, whose task included
examining research proposals and control on their effectiveness upon final approval. While
research in the faculty generally presupposed development of the socialist scholarship on state andlaw, this commission often admitted other proposals which had indirect link; for example;
internationalism in public administration, ideological aspects of the foreign relations. Many
scholars who worked in the faculty in the Soviet era assert that public funding regarding legal
research was incomparably higher and networks between legal scholars, particularly those withsocialist states, were much wider as compared to the present situation. Indeed, some numbers
calculated by compiling existing archival sources demonstrate a high number of published research
88

For example; Agzamhodjaev A.A., Nekotorie Osobennosti Podgotovki i Chteniya Lektsiy (TashGU, 1976);
Agzamhodjaev A.A., O Metodike Podgotovki i Chteniya Lektsiy Po Yuridicheskim Distsiplinam (Fan, 1975);
Sarkisyants G.P., O Metodike Uchebno Vospitatel’noy Raboti so Studentami Zaochnikami (Fan, 1978); Urazaev Sh.Z.,
G.M. Tansykbaeva, and Z.M. Islamov, Metodicheskie Rekommendatsii Studentam Pervogo Kursa Po Izucheniuy
Teorii Gosudarstva i Prava (TashGU: 1978,); B.A. Blinder, Metodika Chteniy Lektsiy Po Ugolovnomu Pravu i
Kriminologii (M, 1977).
89
Agzamhodjaev and Blinder, Yuridicheskoe Obrazovanie v Uzbekistane. 46.
90
Agzamhodjaev and Blinder, Tashkentskiy Gosudarstvenniy Universitet Imeni V.I. Lenina. Yuridicheskiy Fakul’tet.
77.
31

data. As an example, between 1960-79 local scholars published 22 monographs, five commentaries
to codes, many peer-reviewed articles and books written by both single authors and in coauthorship. After 1980 and up to 1990, the research produced by the faculty members remained
high in the Soviet Union, both qualitatively and quantitatively. 91 Another high achievement
included organization within the faculty of a special council on doctoral dissertations (D.Sc.) on;
state law and administration, administrative law, financial law, Soviet administration, criminal law,criminal process.
The faculty maintained close partner relations with law faculties in other, mainly socialistoriented countries. For example, by 1980, TashGU maintained several exchange programs with
Sophia University (former Peoples Republic of Bulgaria), and some universities in former Socialist
Federative Republic of Yugoslavia. Apart from that, many professors and law lecturers
participated in regular conferences in Albania, Algeria, Hungary, Mongolia, Yemen, and Vietnam.
Furthermore, the faculty often admitted students from socialist-friendly Vietnam, Laos, andMongolia for graduate research. Even though the faculty maintained certain links withinternational partners, main research and education cooperation concentrated within the Soviet
Union, namely with law faculties in Moscow, Kharkov, Riga, Baku, Sverdlovsk.92
II.3. Legal Research
Legal research in the Soviet Uzbekistan was a planned research tied to the economic andsocial programs of the Communist party, and, therefore enjoyed a well-organized and adequate
funding from the government. Unlike in many western countries, Soviet scholars did not carry out
highly individualized research within law institutes or faculties, but rather, concentrated withinscientific research institutions. While university teaching community undertook certain research
activities in the law faculty, such as drafting textbooks, education guidelines, and curriculum
development, the scientific research covering post-graduate legal studies and highly sophisticatedlegal research fell exceptionally within the competence of local or union level law research
institutes.93
II.3.a. The Muminov Institute of Philosophy and Law of Uzbek SSR Academy of Science94
This institute was founded in 1958 on the basis of the Department of Philosophy and Law
affiliated with the Presidium of the Uzbek SSR Academy of Sciences, and played the mostimportant and prestigious scientific research institution in the field of law in the Uzbek SSR.95 As
it may be obvious from its name, the structure of the institute was composed of two departments;
philosophy, and state and law, which subsequently contained own sections. (Refer to the tablebelow)

91

Ibid.,
Agzamhodjaev and Blinder, Yuridicheskoe Obrazovanie v Uzbekistane. 57.
93
Butler, Soviet Law, 72. This institute functioned until it was transformed into Center of Legal Research under the
TSUL. (Refer to next section)
94
Academician A.I. Muminov (Uzbek SSR Academy of Sciences) organized and initially directed this institute.
95
Blair A. Ruble and Mark H. Teeter, A Scholars’ Guide to Humanities and Social Sciences in the Soviet Union: The
Academy of Sciences of the USSR and the Academies of Sciences of the Union Republics (M.E. Sharpe, 1985), 236.
92

32

The State and Law Departmenmt•Theory of state and law•Comparative state studies•Public law and administrative law•Soviet governmental structure•Civil law and legal procedure•Economic law•Legal problems in marriage and the family and in labor law•land and water law for collective farms and legal problems in the exploitation and preservation of natural
resources•Criminal law and legal procedure

The Philosophy Department•Dialectical materialism•Historical materialism•Problems of scientific communism•The history and logic of science•The theory of reflection and scientific cognition•Philosophical problems of socialist internationalism and national relations•Problems of scientific atheism and atheistic education•Applied sociology•Problems of ethics and aesthetics•History of sociophilosophical thought•Sociological thought in the countries of the non-Soviet Orient•History of atheism and free thinking

Table 2.2: Institute of Philosophy and Law of Uzbek SSR Academy of Science Departments and theirsections.

The institute employed a staff exceeding 100, including technical personnel, ten of whomwere professors with a DSc degree and 30 candidates of sciences. It was an autonomous research
institute which guided the research on socialist governmental structure in Uzbek SSR, theory andhistory of the Soviet state and law, legal regulation of property relations, preparation ofscientifically grounded recommendations for improving Soviet legislation and many other fieldsof legal research. Its members regularly participated in international scientific and scholarly
conferences and symposiums as well as maintained links with many research and educational
institutions in Moscow, Leningrad and other republics.96
II.4. The Initial Post-Soviet Environment
The fall of the Soviet Union and a transition towards market economy required reorienting
HE system to educate people who would work in the new economic and social conditions. The
Uzbek model of transition presupposed a gradual, step by step approach in implementing widescale public reforms, including in the HE fields, with the state playing a dominant guiding role atthe center.97 Notably, people who formed a newly independent government in Uzbekistan, in theirIbid, 237.
A gradualist approach to transition is widely reflected in books of Islam Karimov such as, [On the way ofModernization of the country and development of economy] Mamlakatni modernizatsiya qilish va iqtisodiyotimizni
96
97

33

majority represented mainly a former socialist nomenklatura class. Obviously, therefore “...
Uzbekistan’s general approach to HE reforms has been described as top-down and strictly
centralized, offering little or no autonomy to HEI’s in matters concerning course design, student
intake and management of own finances.”98
Following independence, as in many other parts of the former Soviet Union, there has beena visible increase in the popularity of legal education in Uzbekistan. In the Soviet time, it was onlya small law faculty of TashGU which produced a combined total of less than hundred students
each year. Even though the government did not create conditions for setting up private HEIs as
comparatively to many other countries of the former USSR, since 1991, it set up new faculties in
the public universities in Samarkand, and Nukus (Karakalpak State University). Furthermore,
Uzbekistan launched its first institute of law (Tashkent State Institute of Law) and the Faculty ofInternational Law in the University of World Economy and Diplomacy.
As the number of law departments increased, legal education and profession became moreprestigious, and many parents wished that their children would graduate as lawyers. Furthermore,
the creation of the contract-based study (based on a paid-tuition fee) system within thoseinstitutions allowed many applicants even with unsatisfactory marks or low entrance exam scoresto enroll on a paid base. Another reason why demand not only to legal, but higher education in
general increased, is because young population attempted to avoid a difficult, non-qualified job
market and some men thought that enrollment into higher education institution will help to avoid
an obligatory military service.
Reforms of the legal education in the initial years however did not result in any sudden
structural changes as they simply contained no concrete reflections of the government’s views anddetailed strategy towards higher education policy yet. Therefore, until certain period, the entire
higher legal education system remained widely untouched, with the exception of termination of
Marxist-Leninist philosophy and Scientific Communism. The rest of the disciplines existed in thesame way as they used to during the last years of perestroika period.
In 2000, the TashGU was renamed into the National University of Uzbekistan named after
Mirzo Ulugbek. Between 2000 - 2013, its faculty of law, as well as those in Samarkand and Nukus
usually offered the following majors in their four-years undergraduate programs;
Civil law and civil process;Criminal law and criminal process;National idea, basics of spirituality and legal education;
The theory of state - law and administration;
Basics of state and law, environmental law;
Table 2.3: Shown majors were available in both Russian and Uzbek languages. In case of Nukus State University– in Karakalpak language. Furthermore, law faculties contained master’s programs with a total duration of two
years.

In 2013, as a result of reforming the Tashkent State Institute of Law (TSUL) and enlarging
its capacity into the law university level, the faculties of law in the National University ofbarqaror rivozhlantirish yo`lida (Uzbekistan, 2008); I. A. Karimov, Uzbekistan on the Threshold of the Twenty-First
Century: Challenges to Stability and Progress (St. Martin’s Press, 1998).
98
John C. Weidman and Brian Yoder, “Policy and Practice in Education Reform in Mongolia and Uzbekistan during
the First Two Decades of the Post-Soviet Era,” Excellence in Higher Education 1, no. 1&2 (December 31, 2010): 57–
68.
34

Uzbekistan and Samarkand State University ceased to exist.99 A legal education in the Karakalpak
State University is rather not focus-oriented as it is delivered in a combined Faculty of History andLaw.100 Hence, up to the present there are left only two domestic HEIs in Uzbekistan which offer
graduate and undergraduate degrees in law and their detailed image will be presented in the next
chapters.
Sub-Conclusion to the Chapter
If one takes a closer look at the Soviet era legal education, regardless whether in Central
Asia, Russia, or Caucasus, it is possible to highlight several distinguishing points. First, legal
education in the Soviet Union was very state-centered. In other words, curriculum, the main
objectives of studying law as well as the admissions quota strictly followed the state needs. Suchneeds were dictated by the Communist Party and other central Soviet official bodies. It is therefore
the Soviet legal curriculum mandatorily contained such disciplines as the theory of state and law
and the general history of state and law. In such circumstances, the positivist, state-centrist model
existed as the only acceptable doctrine applicable to state and its legal system. Anotherdistinguishing point was a mandatory system of distribution of graduates among local, regionaland central law enforcement bodies. The graduates were obliged to work in the court, prosecutor’s
office, or any other juridical organization. Having used the public money for own education andstipend, any student upon his graduation was a subject of a governmental mandatory employment
system. Such employment could only be changed after having worked for a particular amount oftime.101
Many scholars assert that the legal education in the Soviet Union put a dominant emphasis
on Marxism-Leninism, but not on law. 102 In fact by referring to the admissions (applicants’devotion to the communism), curriculum, and graduation requirements, one may easily notice thatmany politically-oriented disciplines dealing with the Marxist theory of political economy andtheory of development of social classes and other non-legal subjects existed in the Soviet legal
curriculum at the expense of legal study. While such critics might be fair for the Russian case,where state-controlled socialist legal education replaced a relatively free one which existed under
the Tsarist system, in Central Asian case, and particularly in Uzbekistan’s first law faculty, theintroduction of a secular, socialist legal education instead of the previously existing Islamic legal
education came out as an ambitious project which totally transformed this country’s legal profile.
A heritage from the socialist past indeed formed a solid base for a newly emerging legal
education system in Uzbekistan. Even though changes have taken place as a result of independence
policies, for example, four law faculties and one profile law university were established,nevertheless the higher legal education was modeled predominantly on the Soviet system, howevercontained a sociology of law approach which would not enable students to specify and understandcontradictions occurring in transitional Uzbekistan. In such circumstances, short and long-term
issues concerning cultivating interculturally-competent and internationally-minded legal scholars
and practitioners arose, and legal education in Uzbekistan has started very slowly gravitating
towards globalization. This tendency has especially intensified as a direct result of assistance99

Refer to further chapters for details.
Although it grants the degree in law, the curriculum remains heavily state-centrist and, as a fact, not purely legal.
Refer further to https://karsu.uz/en/faculties/faculty-of-history-and-law.html
101
Law of September 15, 1933 (Sobranie Zakonov SSSR, 1933), I, No.56, art 356.
102
Glos, “Soviet Law and Soviet Legal Education in an Historical Context.”, 264.
100

35

projects initiated by developed donor-states. For instance, the first wave of interest in transforming
legal culture and institutions in Uzbekistan was initiated in 1990th by the U.S. - funded projects
which primarily emphasized on directly exporting its own law and legal education doctrine. Later,
Germany started projects of legal transplantation of Western concepts of "democracy," "rule oflaw," and "human rights." After 2000, Japan launched its legal assistance program to Uzbekistanwith a goal of providing necessary information and resource training in the process of transition
from socialist to a market-oriented economy.

36

III. Tashkent State University of Law (TSUL): From Theoretical Aspects to Practicality
Introduction to the Chapter
In March 1991, by then the Cabinet of
Ministers under the President of the Uzbek SSR
established the Law Institute within the Tashkent State
University named after V. I. Lenin (TashGU).103 Afterseveral month, in August 1991, it was re-organized asa separate HEI - the Tashkent State Institute of Law(TSIL) and attached to the Uzbek Ministry of Justice(the MOJ).104 Since its establishment in 1991 and up to2013, the TSIL produced law specialists for stateservices: law enforcement, courts and administrative
bodies, and strongly reproduced the Soviet style
approach of legal education and legal professional Image 3.1: The TSUL, Façade.
training.
In 2013, given a widely static condition of legal education and preparation of legal
professionals in the TSIL, the government re-organized it into the Tashkent State University ofLaw (TSUL) and initiated wide scale reforms by attracting a small group of young specialists withpredominantly international legal educational background.105 The TSUL became one of the first
HEI in Uzbekistan to enjoy a higher degree of freedom from the MOHSSE in terms of compositionof curriculum, teaching style and research. Hence, since 2013 and after recent reforms in 2017, theTSUL started showing some positive signs of gravitating towards internationalization andmodernization of the higher legal education in Uzbekistan.
Due to the tremendous increase in popularity of legal education and work in law
enforcement agencies in Uzbekistan, the TSUL has been remaining as one of the most prestigious
universities with the highest admissions score record. However, notwithstanding far reachingreforms, the TSUL has been facing shortage of adequately trained teaching staff and bureaucratic
barriers, created additionally by public agencies such as MOHSSE which eventually slows down
the promotion process of modern legal educational trends. Another critical aspect is a visible
monopolization of legal education in light of the fact that establishment of the TSUL as a university
in 2013 terminated law faculties in the former TashGU and Samarkand State University (SamGU).
Faculties (Directions)
As of September 2018, there are five directions at the LL. B level; (1) State (public) law(Gos Pravo) (2) Civil law, (3) Business law, (4) Criminal law, and (5) International law. LL.M
Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov pri Prezidente Uzbekskoy SSR N 73 Ob Organizatsii Yuridicheskogo Instituta
pri Tashkentskom Gosudarstvennom Universitete im. V. I. Lenina, 1991.
The law faculty of the TashGU provided initial material basis for the Law Institute.
104
Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov pri Prezidente Uzbekskoy SSR N 221 O Preobrazovanii Yuridicheskogo Instituta
pri Tashkentskom Gosudarstvennom Universitete im. V. I. Lenina v Tashkentskiy Gosudarstvenniy Yuridicheskiy
Universitet, 1991.
105
Postanovlenie Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan 1990, O Merah po Dal’neyshemu Sovershenstvovaniuy Sistemy
Podgotovki Yuridicheskih Kadrov. June 28, 2013; Postanovlenie Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan 2932 O Merah Po
Korennomu Sovershenstvovaniyu Sistemi i Povisheniyu Effektivnosti Podgotovki Kadrov v Tashkentskom
Gosudarstvennom Yuridicheskom Universitete. April 28, 2017.
10337

programs offer specialization on (1) State (public) administration (Gos upravlenie), (2) Labor andemployment law, (3) Theory and practice of criminal law, (4) Law and business, (5) Financial andlegal monitoring, and (6) Law and IT. The TSUL also offers doctoral (Ph.D. and D.Sc.) courses
on multiple legal disciplines. Furthermore, the TSUL incorporates Center for Retraining and
Improving of the Qualification of Law Instructors, and the Center of Legal Research.106
III.1. Undergraduate level (LL. B)
III.1.a. Admissions and selection (requirements and entrance exam, admission numbers, statesponsored grant/contract-based study, stipend, classification by language/regions/gender)
Requirements and entrance exam
A candidate applying to the TSUL is required to have completed a full 11-year program ofsecondary education or be a graduate from secondary special or vocational institution (college or
lyceum). As a part of application documents, an applicant is also required to submit a medical
certificate on the prescribed form, the passport or certificate of birth (for those who have notreached 16), and application with the indication of direction and language of education. 107 Before
all candidates had to submit their application documents directly to the TSUL’s admissionscommission based in Tashkent, but in order to simplify the process, starting from 2018, documents
can be submitted via Public Service Agencies under the MOJ which operate in 201 administrative
territorial units of Uzbekistan. Such process, enables many applicants from the regions to submit
their applications without necessarily travelling to Tashkent. As of 2017, the TSUL implemented
only full-time study programs, and there are no options like part-time, online-interactive or double
degree program in the LL. B course.
Admissions exam is highly competitive. Each successful applicant must have passed threeblocks (subjects) of entrance tests; Russian or Uzbek language and literature (depending on theintended course), history (similarly, in Russian or in Uzbek), and one foreign language (usually,
English. Since 2018, holders of CEFR B1 level of foreign language exam (conducted regularly by
the State Testing Center) automatically obtain the maximum point for foreign language bloc. 108
Before 2018, each of the three subjects contained 36 questions, which made it 108 in total andoffered 226,8 points as the maximum score.109 After 2018, the number of questions for each subject
was decreased from 36 to 30 making it 90 in total, whereas the time for entrance exam remained
the same (3 hours). Each correct answer for a single test question gives an applicant a certain point.
Thus, one correct answer for history test question is equal to 3.1, native language and literature 2.1, while English - 1.1. Thus, if an applicant correctly answers all 90 questions, the total maximum
score will compose - 189. Those few who achieve the highest test scores in the entrance tests arelikely to be admitted on the state-grant basis (without tuition fee). Others, may get enrolled in caseif they agree to cover the tuition fee (contract-based study).
Apart from that, the TSUL also includes; the Language Training Center, the Legal Clinic, IRC, the Centre forJapanese Law, the Academic Lyceum and Colleges (competent to the MOJ) and numerous scientific departments.
107
Resolution of Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan N 118, June 18, 2010.
108
Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov N 610, 2017. CEFR B1 holders were not required to take 36 question tests on
foreign language (English, German, French)
109
Preparation of entrance tests as well as notification on results for all domestic higher education entities, fall into
exceptional competence of the State Testing Center. Refer further to; Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov Respubliki
Uzbekistan 258 o Sozdanii Gosudarstvennogo Centra Testirovaniya pri Kabinete Ministrov Respubliki Uzbekistan.
14 May 1994.
106

38

In some cases, the entrance tests may be waived, or applicant can be offered particularadmissions privileges. For example, winners of domestic Olympiads (inter-disciplinarycompetitions among high schools) or international competitions or contest are entirely waived
from taking tests and admitted automatically upon submitting the relevant certificates.110 Men who
undergo their military service in Uzbekistan and wishing to enroll in higher education entities arealso eligible for generous privileges. In particular, if they obtain a score more than 100, they get
extra 50 percent out of achieved score added to their final results. 111 Such scheme makes many ofthem uneasy to compete.
2018-19 Admissions exam scores
Top state-sponsored grant score
Russian language course
223.5(Evropotok)
Uzbek language course(Natspotok)

Top contract- based score
176.7

Table 3.1: 2018-19 Admissions exam scores. In 2018 Admissions year, the TSUL demonstrated the top admissions
score record in Uzbekistan. While maximum total score is 189. Those entitled for military benefits could get extra
points and, thus obtain a score of up to 223. Such scheme made it impossible for male without military backgroundand female candidates to compete for state-support grant placement.112

Recently, in 2018, a newly signed Presidential decree has stipulated that starting from2020-21 academic year, some graduates of the domestic law colleges will enroll to the special 3year LL. B program of the TSUL on an exam-free basis.113 It is supposed that 14 new law colleges
will function in all 12 regions as well as Tashkent and Nukus (the Karakalpak Republic) andpertain direct subordination to the MOJ. Notably, only those college graduates who obtain thespecific directives from the specially composed commissions under the local departments of MOJ
will have a chance to be enrolled without admissions test, but only through a brief interview. Suchinterview will evaluate the candidate’s knowledge of legal reforms, foreign language 114 andpersonal characteristics. 115 Admitted candidates will be able to enroll in the TSUL only to thecontract-paid base and upon their graduation from the three-year special program will have tomandatorily work for 3 years in specifically designated MOJ positions. 116 As long as thisAnnex V, 1-6 Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov N226, 2008.
The citizens (In Uzbekistan, only men undergo a military service) who served in the armed forces of the Republicof Uzbekistan along with the above-stated documents present the originals of their military identification card, andalso the recommendation of commanders of military units in the place of service. Refer further to; O‘zbekiston
Respublikasi Qurolli Kuchlari safida muddatli harbiy xizmatni o‘tab bo‘lgan fuqarolarga imtiyozlar tizimini
takomillashtirishga oid chora-tadbirlar to‘g‘risida”gi 2012 yil 31 maydagi PQ-1765-son qaroriga o‘zgartirish
kiritish to‘g‘risida”gi 2017 yil 4 Apreldagi PQ-2867-sonli qarori.
112
Refer
further
to,http://www.dtm.uz/post/view/respublika-oliy-ta-lim-muassasalarida-o-tkazilgan-testsinovlarining-birinchi-kuni-natijalari [accessed on August 3, 2018]
113
Postanovlenie Prezidenta N3666, 2018, 7 (a).
114
Candidates who can demonstrate; CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference), 5,5 IELTS (International
English Language Testing System), 70 TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) ТDN3 TestDaF (Test Deutsch
als Fremdsprache fur auslandische Studienbewerber) will be waived from language interview.
115
Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov N 573, 2018; Refer further for details to, Polojenie o Priyome Vipusknikov
Yuridicheskih Kolledjey Ministerstva Yustitsii Respubliki Uzbekistan v Bakalavriat Tashkentskogo Gosudarstvennogo
Yuridicheskogo Universiteta, 2018.
116
Polojenie o Priyome Vipusknikov Yuridicheskih Kolledjey Ministerstva Yustitsii Respubliki Uzbekistan v
Bakalavriat Tashkentskogo Gosudarstvennogo Yuridicheskogo Universiteta.
110
111

39

exceptional admissions system has not started and there are no concrete ideas yet about theforthcoming curriculum and syllabi for this special 3-year program, it is not possible within theframes of the present research to give further description and analysis of its implementation.
Admission numbers and state-sponsored grant/contract-based study
In the academic year 2017-18, 600 students enrolled at the undergraduate (bachelor’s) levelof the TSUL, of which 20 on the basis of the state-sponsored grants (non-tuition fee) and 580 ona paid-contract basis - kontrakt (tuition fee payed).117 The undergraduate education in the TSUL isclassified into five specialties (directions); Public law, Civil law, Criminal law, International law,and Business law.118 Each of the specialty is subsequently divided into two separate courses; acourse in Russian language (Evropotok), and in Uzbek language (Natspotok). In 2017, the State
Commission has elaborated the quota for this university in the following way; 200 seats for
Russian language groups out of which only five state-supported grants, and 400 seats for Uzbek
language groups out of which 15 students could receive state-grants.119 In the same academic year,
the government introduced a system of additional (above the traditional contract quota) admissions
based on a higher contract rate (super kontrakt). 120 To enroll on such system, an applicant is
expected to collect around 50 points (usual kontrakt is about 170) in the admissions exam andagree to cover a tuition fee which is incomparably higher than regular contract. 121 In 2017,
additional 188 students enrolled on such conditions, which made the total number of students 788.
Comparatively to the previous years, the TSUL has been enlarging its enrollment dynamics.
For example, in the academic years 2016-17 and 2015-16 the number of students admitted to theundergraduate level composed 481 and 451 respectively, whereas in 2012-13 it was only 410. The
data analysis on the admissions quotes, state grants, contract-based studies and average enrollmentscores evidence that while the number of applicants and prospective students as well as averageadmission scores are on the rise, the government decreases its state-sponsored grant quota andincreases the number of contract-based (tuition fee paying) seats in the TSUL. Existing statistical
date demonstrates that the actual number of students enrolled into TSUL is likely to raise
enormously in the nearest future.

Since 2007, President of Uzbekistan several times proposed to enlarge the quota and incorporate foreign law
university branch to develop the standards for producing domestic lawyers.
118
The 2001 State Educational Standards Reegulation. Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov Respubliki Uzbekistan ob
Utverjdenii Gosudarstvennyh Obrazovatel’nyh Standartov Vysshego Obrazovaniya. S izmeneniyami i dopolneniyami,
N23, 2017.
119
Postanovlenie Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan 2955;
This data is also available at Admissions Committee/Tashkent State University of Law webpage [accessed on
December 11, 2017].
120
The number of additional quota is to be determined by the State Commission based on the potential of particularhigher education entity as well as the major of study. Refer further to, Postanovlenie Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan
2955., 5.
121
The sum of such ‘extra high’ contract in 2017-2018 admissions year composed 247 million UZS which is around30 thousand USD, whereas usual contract was less than 10 million UZS (around one thousand USD). This rate is thehighest among HEIs in Uzbekistan and incomparable to the usual salary in Uzbekistan. The amount of contract isincreasing annually.
117

40

Fig 3.1: The number of admitted students
to the TSUL in academic years between
2014-17 in paid and non-paid perspective.
The grey area in the 2017 admissions
round demonstrates that more than 180
students could enroll the LL. B coursewith extremely low admissions score by
merely covering a higher tuition fee(Approximately, 30 thousand USD).
Source: TSUL International Department.

International students enrolling into the TSUL do not have to take admissions tests but
merely need to undergo a formal interview. There is neither specific quota no state-grants forinternational students, which means they can only enroll on a contract-based study. The sum of
the tuition fee is higher than regular contract, but still lower than ‘extra’ high contract amount.122

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Foreign state
Japan
China
South Korea
RussiaKazakhstan
Turkmenistan
Total number

Table 3.2: Number of foreign students. According to
the International Department of the TSUL in 2017
there were 10 international students in total. Source:
TSUL International Department.123

Number of students
1
1
1
4
2
1
10

Stipend
All students within official quota receive a monthly stipend to cover a certain amount ofliving expenses, which may be increased for excellent marks. Uzbekistan inherited this system ofproviding financial support to students from its Soviet past. Presently, the actual amount of stipend
is far from being enough to cover the tuition fee and accommodation. Nevertheless, even thissymbolic support helps many students to cover some daily expenses like lunch or/andtransportation. Furthermore, a higher stipend that students can receive upon obtaining excellent
marks, stimulates many to perform better in their studies.
Since June 2018, there were certain speculations, including on the government level, about
termination of the stipend system. In particular, certain groups suggested that by terminating
As of 2017-18 admissions years it composed about 34 million UZS (a bit more than four thousand USD) referfurther to http://www.tsul.uz/ru/interaktivnie-uslugi/priemnaya-komissiya [accessed on July 27, 2018]123
As of 2018, there are only15 foreign students according to the TSUL International Department.
122

41

stipends, paid contracts in HEIs in Uzbekistan could be reasonably decreased, which, in turn,would be fairer towards contract-based students. Nevertheless, the system of stipend remains
unchanged to date. This does not however mean that it will continuously exist, especially in lightof the recent discussions among the MOHSSE about intended gravitating towards educational
system of the developed states were universities normally do not pay such stipends. The question
which remains open here is what alternative support the government can suggest to students fromthe low-income families who rely heavily on even such a symbolic amount of money?
Apart from usual stipend, the government, via MOHSSE offers a very limited number ofstipends to those students who demonstrate excellent academic progress starting from their second
year of studies. For obtaining such stipend, a student must correspond to certain criteria, such as
publications, high academic performance, knowledge of language and participation in scientificprojects. 124
Classification by language/regions/gender
The number of applicants applying for studying in Uzbek groups (Natspotok) is
traditionally three-four times bigger that those applying for Russian course. For example, in theadmissions year 2018-19, out of 7057 applicants, 5603 applied for Uzbek course, while only 1454
opted for Russian.

Table 3.3: The 2018-19 admissions. Natspotok (Uzbek language course) - 5603, Evropotok (Russian language
course) - 1454 applicants.
Source. State Testing Center

124

Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov N226. Annex III.
42

Fig 3.2: Number of admitted students to the TSUL in academic years between 2014-17 in regional perspective.
(Statistical data includes number of students in admission years 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 from each region (12regions, the Republic of Karakalpakstan, and capital city Tashkent).

The admission quotes for the TSUL are not distributed among the regions of Uzbekistan(regional quota) but simply based on the high entrance test results. Statistical data demonstrates
that the highest number of applicants are from Tashkent city, Kashkadarya, and Ferghana (themost populous regions in Uzbekistan).
Normally, there is no sexual restrictions or limitations for studying in the TSUL. On theother hand, even though such restrictions do not apply, there is a visible majority of male students
in the TSUL, which may be explained by the attractiveness of employment in the law enforcement
agencies, particularly prosecutor’s office, among the male population in Uzbekistan. Additionally,
as mentioned above, male applicants who undergo a military service obtain large benefits during
entrance exam.125 As the number of such applicants annually increases, it is uneasy for female
applicants to compete male candidates and enroll into the TSUL.

“The TSUL Deputy - Rector Kamalov on the New (Modular) Scheme.,” February 29, 2016; Mr. D, Ms. N, Mr. S,
Mr. M., TSUL LL. B students (two of the students are in Evropotok and other two in Natspotok), Summer 2018;
12543

Fig 3.3: Number of admitted LL.B students to the TSUL in academic years between 2014-17 in gender
perspective. (Between 2014-16 the yearly female enrollment did not exceed 10 - 15 percent out of total
number of entrants. In 2017-18 admissions year, it composed slightly more than 20 percent out of total
number of students).

Lately, there is some critics that legal education, which is traditionally a male-dominatedarea in Uzbekistan, becomes even more restricted for women who cannot compete with men
receiving military benefits during entry exams. As a result, an overall proportion of female students
in the present and other HEI drops dramatically. On the other hand, the government aims toencourage and raise the prestige of the military service among young men in Uzbekistan byproposing various benefits, including in the HEI admissions policy. Another critical aspect touches
upon the annually increasing sums of tuition fees and decreasing the state-sponsored grants. The
mere fact that many applicants with extremely low admissions scores can enroll upon merely
paying higher contract rates is unusual phenomenon for predominantly low-salary Uzbek
population, and may signal of gradual commercialization of public legal education in Uzbekistan.
III.1.b. LL. B Curriculum (introduction of modular system, preparatory process, time division
and academic disciplines, internship)
Until 2013, it was the MOHSSE which was responsible for the general direction of legal
education throughout all HE entities in Uzbekistan. In theory, it was the Ministry but not the TSUL
which worked out the plan of study, confirmed the syllabi, directed the preparation and publicationof textbooks for students, determined the number of teaching staff126 and even decided upon thesize of buildings and classes. In 2013, the TSUL has introduced the modular scheme of legal

M. Kamalov, Meeting of the Deputy-Rector Kamalov with the delegation of Nagoya University, Graduate Schoolof Law. (Tashkent, TSUL, October 10, 2017). The number of teaching staff based on a number of students. Present
proportion composes one teacher for 11 students and it is expected to be reduced smoothly by 2020, and compose one
teacher for 9 students. This will let the TSUL to enhance the quality of teaching.
126

44

education.127 It became the first domestic HE entity to experiment with the new system, within therealities of predominantly Soviet-type education system. An introduction and transplantation ofthis system to the TSUL’s curricula was mainly initiated by young scholars from Uzbekistan who
graduated or were affiliated with the University of Westminster or its counterpart in Tashkent(WIUT). Notably, a modular system was initially supposed to be accompanied by the Westernaccreditation system and greater academic freedom, however such peculiar elements have not beenpromoted. Therefore, a closer look at this system raises many justified concerns regarding its actual
difference with a usual rating system. Indeed, while there are certain technical alterations, one
cannot find a principal difference between the presently existing modular and previous rating
system.
Between 2013-17, the MOHSSE, in coordination between the MOJ and the TSUL,
performed a formal role in implementation of the state educational standards under the state
educational standard 5240100 (Jurisprudence) into legal curriculum. This code (Napravlenie)
includes formal HE qualification requirements for training general domestic law specialists. A
codified database formally regulates legal academic disciplines, curriculum, semesters,
qualification internships, assessment and a quality control.128
In practice, as the MOHSSE has no direct knowledge of the implementation of law
curricula and study process within the modular system, the TSUL informally performed a leading
part in reviewing state law educational standards, study programs and curricula. Later in 2017, asa result of legislative changes, the TSUL became formally independent from the MOHSSE todecide on modular law curriculum, as well as how and over what period to teach law disciplines.
Even though the modular system with the credit-based evaluation system and free attendance has
not recommended itself as a default mode for higher education in Uzbekistan yet, its introductive
experiment without certain components in the TSUL is considered by the government as animportant move in reforming the higher educational system. In particular, the modular system in
the TSUL does not resemble to the accreditation system used in western law schools. It is intended
to provide merely a more diverse space for teaching and learning methodologies with a particularfocus on student-centered activities rather than passive learning as it was widely observed in the
TSUL before or still evident in other law teaching institutions in Uzbekistan.
Time division and academic disciplines
The bachelor course at the TSUL consists of four years which cover 29 modules(disciplines). Each academic year is divided into two semesters. Recently, with the separation ofa certain amount of time for a self-study, each semester was reduced from 19 to14 teaching weeks.
The TSUL students carry a burden of 29 hours of lectures and tutorials per week. Bachelor level
curriculum includes a common - mandatory and specialty focused curriculum which starts fromthe second year.
The common - mandatory modules are compulsory for all. The higher education
requirements determine mandatory part of the state educational standards for social sciences andhumanities, as well as for some natural science disciplines. According to the standards, the core
Postanovlenie Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan 1990, O Merah po Dal’neyshemu Sovershenstvovaniuy Sistemy
Podgotovki Yuridicheskih Kadrov. June 28, 2013.
128
The 2001 State Educational Standards Reegulation. Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov Respubliki Uzbekistan ob
Utverjdenii Gosudarstvennyh Obrazovatel’nyh Standartov Vysshego Obrazovaniya. S izmeneniyami i dopolneniyami,
N23, 2017.
127

45

modules’ study phase composes more than 60 percent of the curriculum’s total time allowance.129
Humanitarian part of curriculum includes; new history of Uzbekistan, philosophy, logics,
economics, concepts and principles of national idea, as well as academic writing and foreign
language for lawyers. TSUL students must also study IT and, legal statistics and accounting. The
number of professional legal courses is somewhat extensive: public (constitutional) law, criminal
law, civil law, administrative law, labor law, international public law, finance and tax law, criminal
procedure law, civil procedure law, law enforcement bodies, system analysis, Roman law, legal
ethics, forensic examination, and lawyer’s professional speech.
Public law
Local public andstate bodies

Civil law
Banking law

Business law
Banking law

International law
Int-l finance andbanking law

Executory law

Criminal law
International lawof enforcement
bodiesCrime
qualification
Prosecution

International
private law
Housing law

Int-l commercial
arbitration
Int-l trade law

Civil service

Criminology

Family law

Int-l commercial
arbitration
International tradelaw
Competition law

Tax administration
Administrative
liability130
NotaryAdvocacy
Criminalistics

Corporate law
Law of economic
procedure
Advocacy

Executory process
Economic
procedural law
Investment law

Procedural
documents incivil cases

Customs law

Law of int-l
agreements

Administrative
liability

Information law

Law of agriculture

Prosecution

Operative-search
activity

Agrarian law

Advocacy
Investment law
Environmental law

Court medicine
and psychiatry
Executory process
Environmental law

Business law

Business law

Executory
process
NotaryLaw of social
insurance
Business law

Procedural
documents under
economic cases
Advocacy

Procedural
documents underadministrative cases
Law of int-lorganizations

Customs law

Procedural
documents underadministrative
cases
Housing law

Criminal executive
law
Procedural
documents undercriminal cases

Int-l human rights
law
Int-l private law
Int-l economic law
Investment law

Int-l criminal law

Corporate law
Social security law

Advocacy
Environmental law

Business law

Business law

Tab 3.4: TSUL LL.B curriculum’s five specialties and related modules which cover second, third and fourth years.

Hence, much of the first and second years which start in September and finish in June isdevoted to studying non-legal, para-legal and, substantive law modules labeled as mandatory under
the state standard requirements. At the end of each semester, students have two weeks (sessiya)
during which they need to have their earned grades officially recorded. If student earns minimum
grades for every discipline, then he officially completes the whole course and continues to the next.
“The TSUL Deputy - Rector Kamalov on the New (Modular) Scheme.,” February 29, 2016.
Currently, there is no adequate training on administrative law, apparently because of the shortage relevant
specialists. Previously the TSUL had a relatively vibrant administrative law chair but its scholars mainly resigned.
129
130

46

If, however some students did not obtain satisfactory grades, and thus could not pass any
discipline(s), under the newly introduced modular scheme, they cannot proceed to the next
academic year unless they cover again the course(s) in which they could not obtain necessary
grades. Notably, before such novelty was introduced, students who could not obtain satisfactory
grade(s) were dismissed from the TSUL, and in case in they decided to re-enroll they had to cover
the whole course’s curriculum from the beginning.
Starting from the second year, a special commission created by rector of the TSUL,
allocates every student within one of the five specialties. Students with high academic performance
have an exceptional privilege to choose which direction they prefer. Traditionally, students
enrolled into Evropotok prefer Civil, International or Business law, whereas those in the Natspotok
give priority to Criminal law direction. 131 Each particular law specialty develops its own mini
curriculum which contains about 13 elective modules to be studies until graduation. It is expectedthat such specialized legal training would allow the student to major and concentrate efforts on
one specialized area of law.
Internship
While academic modules aim to provide a basic grounding of theoretical skills required bya beginning lawyer, another substantial training which is intended to enable students to become
personally familiar with the legal profession is internship (often referred in Uzbekistan as praktika).
LL. B students spend for internship at particular public or non-public legal institutions or
departments around 16 to 17 weeks within four years. Out of mentioned total time, about three tofour weeks at the end of the second year are given over for an introductory (summertime)internship which requires students to visit three different organizations, usually, the MOJ, courts,
bar associations and prosecutor’s office. While many students generally liked their one week stayin MOJ and describe it as useful and well-organized, many reported negatively about theirexperience in courts, bar associations and, particularly prosecutor’s office. Among many negative
issues, students mentioned about the lack of professional guidance and heavy bureaucratic paperwork. Students also pointed to the fact that only one week for each office is a too short period tolearn something. There were even reports among students that certain organizations refused toprovide internship placement.
Up to 2018, by the end of the sixth semester of the third year, all students had to take afour-week of the so-called qualification (summertime) internship. The university decided on theinternship placement according to the major (specialty) of each student. Apart from publicprosecutor’s office, bar association and courts, many students underwent their internship at thenotary, TSUL’s legal clinic, regional or city internal affairs offices. This internship proved moreproductive than previous in terms of timing, practical experience and future employment
perspectives. Some successful candidates who prove accurate and competent enough may evenreceive a part-time job offer and, hence continue their studies while working in the evenings.
Starting from 2018 the TSUL has changed this internship into the so-called social activities clubs,
where participation is based on student’s voluntary will.

Mr. D, Ms. N, Mr. S, Mr. M., TSUL LL.B students (two of the students study in Evropotok and other two in
Natspotok).
13147

At the end of the seventh semester of the final year, students spend about 10 weeks for the
pre-diploma internship.132 The majority of the students prefer to undergo their internships in law
enforcement agencies or regional, city or district courts, city or regional internal affairs structures,and legal departments of the public organizations. Lesser part may opt for private sector (legal,
consulting or insurance firms, enterprises, private companies). This internship normally
presupposes the support with regard to gathering data for the thesis and, if possibly, securing
employment.
For each of the mentioned internship, a student is obliged to obtain two approval letters,(reports) one from the accepting organization and another from the TSUL. Furthermore, the TSUL
appoints for each student the so-called internship supervisor, including on the regional basis, as
the majority of students travel back to their regions and hometowns during the internship period.133
At the end of the internship period, each student has to get a confirmation from appointed
supervisors about the completion of the internship. Moreover, as all three types of internships are
simultaneously considered as a mandatory part of curriculum, students must take an internshipexam which is carried in a prescribed written form. If a student fails to adequately undertakeinternship activities, this may be subjected to disciplinary actions up to the withdrawal from theuniversity.134
Presently, the TSUL is in the process of negotiations around the question of effectivenessof the summer time internship. In particular, the managing unit of the TSUL is consideringswitching the internship period from summer to the after-class time during the semester.135 It is
supposed that students will learn more and skill up better if they attend public/ private agencies
during the regular semester, rather than during the summer holidays, when most of the students
travel back to their hometowns for holidays and care less about internship’s importance.
III.1.c. Teaching methods
Since the TSUL was established in 1991, its technics of legal training followed the Sovietstyle of memorizing black letter law in the form of traditional ex cathedra lectures. Lecturers,
except the small minority of professors, adhered to the ‘top-down’ method of teaching of domestic
law and required students to memorize written law, take lecture notes - ‘konspekts’, andmechanically apply the codified law into model cases.136 The general contents of lectures remained
very abstract or purely theoretical, without pausing much on comparative legal elements.
Postanovlenie Ministerstva Yustitsii Respubliki Uzbekistan, Verkhovnogo Suda Respubliki Uzbekistan, Vysshego
Hozyaystvennogo Suda Respubliki Uzbekistan, General’noy Prokuraturi Respubliki Uzbekistan, Ministerstva
Finansov Respubliki Uzbekistan, Ministerstva Vysshego i Srednego Spetsial’nogo Obrazovaniya Respubliki
Uzbekistan N 2548 Polojenie o Poryadke Prohojdeniya Studentami Yuridicheskih Obrazovatel’nyh Uchrejdeniy(krome Voyennyh, Spetsial’nyh Vysshih Obrazovatel’nyh Uchrejdeniy) Oznakomite’noy i Kvalifikatsionnoy Praktiki,a takje Stajirovki. December 31, 2013.
133
Their registered residence place (Propiska).
134
Postanovlenie Ministerstva Yustitsii Respubliki Uzbekistan, Verkhovnogo Suda Respubliki Uzbekistan,
General’noy Prokuraturi Respubliki Uzbekistan, Ministerstva Finansov Respubliki Uzbekistan, Ministerstva
Vysshego i Srednego Spetsial’nogo Obrazovaniya Respubliki Uzbekistan N 2548-1 O vnesenii Izmeneniy i
Dopolneniya v Polojenie o Poryadke Prohojdeniya Studentami Yuridicheskih Obrazovatel’nyh Uchrejdeniy (krome
Voyennyh, Spetsial’nyh Vysshih Obrazovatel’nyh Uchrejdeniy) Oznakomite’noy i Kvalifikatsionnoy Praktiki, a takje
Stajirovki. November 22, 2017, 22.
135“The TSUL Deputy - Rector Kamalov on the New (Modular) Scheme.”
136
Even though there are some sporadic requirements to take such notes, presently the majority of professors do not
require students to write konspekts.
132

48

The most recent educational reforms at the TSUL require increasing tremendously the
number of practice-oriented workshops and tutorials and, self-education-oriented training.
Simultaneously, the new approach decreases the number of traditional, top-down lectures in thisuniversity. It is intended that under the newly introduced modular scheme, the TSUL lecturers willemphasize on student-centered learning by relying heavily on the Socratic method of teaching,visual aids such as PowerPoint presentations, case law study and other forms which encourage
students to actively participate and present materials to the class. It mostly depends on the teacher’s
expertise and experience when it comes to the composition of cases. Full-time teachers may createcases independently or copy from Russian books, on the other hand, practitioners prefer using
many cases from own practice. Some students specializing in international law mentioned thatprofessors very rarely address international legal disputes in their classes.137
An old curriculum focused mostly on theoretical aspects of law rather than professional
implications. Lack of practical training and unawareness of students about the legal professional
ethics became one the most serious challenges in the TSUL, which required improvements.
Therefore, during the recent years, the government decided to put more emphasis on the practicaltraining of law students by hiring more legal practitioners on a part-time basis to ensure that they,
if not fully, then at least to certain degree equipped to fulfil tasks assigned by the perspective
employer.138 While a small minority of legal practitioners are able to combine theory and practicein a well-organized manner, the majority often omit the part on theory and transfer a class into the‘practical story-telling’. Furthermore, students reported that many practitioners usually have nochance for regular teaching due to their main job and, therefore, other instructors must replacethem. Such situation eventually leads to the mixed-up teaching and disorientation in the general
direction of the class. Eventually, often far from being an excellent legal scholar, many
practitioners lack another vital component which is essential to the study process, namely, being
an excellent legal educator. It is a well-established fact that even if a high-class practitioner who
is entirely familiar with the doctrinal aspects of the law lacks essential pedagogical skills, he will
not succeed in transferring own knowledge to a younger generation of lawyers.
The primary concern of the present curriculum is integration of theoretical-doctrinal
aspects with educational-practical implications. Having realized a legal education’s wide
disconnection from essential legal practice, the TSUL has been struggling to introduce andmaintain in its new curriculum several special modules stimulating the development of practicalskills, such as; legal academic writing, lawyer’s professional speech, legal techniques, legal ethics,
legal statistics, and system analysis, personal development. These modules are intended toencourage students to delve more deeply into legal working environment. For example, legal
academic writing in the TSUL, apart from its traditional aim of teaching scholarly writing,additionally aims at incorporating learning skills on formulating and writing formal complaints tothe public organs.139

Mr.D, Ms. N, Mr.S, Mr.M., TSUL LL.B students (two of the students are in Evropotok and other two in Natspotok).
Postanovlenie Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan 1990, O Merah po Dal’neyshemu Sovershenstvovaniuy Sistemy
Podgotovki Yuridicheskih Kadrov. June 28, 2013. See 9.
139“Deputy - Rector Kamalov on the New (Modular) Scheme.,” Mail correspondence, February 29, 2016. Previously,
the TSUL students had to carry a heavy workload, some 58 disciplines, while under the new modular scheme, they
can study only 40 modules. Furthermore, old curriculum presupposed teaching the same disciplines for all students,
regardless of their specialization. Under the new curriculum, all study 26 core modules and while selecting a
specialization within directions, a student can concentrate own efforts during the last two years of studies on special
14 modules related to personal choice.
137
138

49

The law curriculum also stresses a large amount of time for self-study during which it isnormally expected that students will revise the material and obtain some additional knowledge oneach discipline. The TSUL students do not have individual, separate study rooms, but theInformation Resource Center of the TSUL has two reading rooms with wireless internet connection,
one for students with about 100 seats and another for faculty members with 82 seats. Given thelarge admissions quota at the TSUL, the number of seats at the IRC premises is obviously notenough for all and hence most of the students have to study outside of the university. In practice,
however, the self-study through reading and regular assignments is often replaced by revising thenotes that lecturer dictates during the lectures. This is largely because of the textbook problem,
including lack of translated international or comparative law material. Additional problem is that
only a handful of young faculty members who studied abroad and thus, in certain degree familiar
with the Socratic and other interactive education methods sometimes implement it into the classdiscussions and debates, as well as note the importance of referring to comparative materials.
While there is only a small minority of such educators, the majority of lecturers belonging to theelder generation of professors who were trained predominantly in the socialist law system still
adhere to the classic Soviet style of teaching law.
III.1.d. Assessment (ongoing, mid-term, final exams)
The TSUL appoints the so-called module leader for each subject who bears a general
responsibility with regard to supervising students’ oral ongoing assessment. The module leader incooperation with relevant chair professors also draft exam questions for interim (mid-term) andfinal examinations. 140 An ongoing assessment is based on supervisor’s evaluation of student’s
overall module progress which includes an ability to comment and analyze study material andcases, participation in group discussions, practical skills and the quality of scientific presentations.
Since 2017, interim (mid-term) assessment is based on two separate exams. First examincludes independent work which allows to evaluate student’s basic research and IT skills.
Normally it is a case report that student can write independently at home. Second is an in-classwritten examination in which a student is expected to prepare and write on one case out of four
available. It is an open book session and students are free to use textbooks, and other relevantmaterials. Normally, module leaders create and distribute such cases one month before the midterm exam date. While students are free to choose interested questions for interim assessment andcan prepare beforehand (around two weeks), they cannot do so in final assessment which is also a
written examination. Out of 100 possible points, 30 are allocated for an ongoing assessment and20 for mid-term exam, and unless a student gets at minimum 26 in these two rounds, he will not
get a permission to take a final exam.
The final exam questions for each year are prepared by module leaders in close cooperation
with chairs and the Academic Registrars Department on the individual slips of paper. Among 150
exam questions prepared for each module, 50 compose the problem questions and 100 are cases.
Each year, module leaders upload these questions to the final exam question database and thus,
make it accessible for all LL. B students at least two weeks before the final exam date. Previously,
These questions are however undergo an expertise from the Academic Registrar’s Department of the TSUL.
Postanovlenie Ministerstva Visshego i Srednego Special’nogo Obrazovaniya Respubliki Uzbekista. Ministerstva
Yustitsii Respubliki Uzbekistan N1 ob Utverjdenii Polojeniya o Poryadke Kontrolya i Kriteriyakh Ocenki Znaniy
Studentov Tashkentskogo Gosudarstvennogo Yuridicheskogo Universiteta v Usloviyakh Modul’noy Sistemy
Obucheniya. 2870, 2006.
14050

it was only at the final exam day when a student could know what questions he will have to answer.
Such approach which did not stipulate any form of preliminary preparation severely limited thequality of answers and overall grades of students. Hence, compared to the previous system, astudent now has a chance to get familiar with the exam questions beforehand and take a time for anecessary preparation. When the student appears on the designated day and time for an
examination, he draws 2 problem questions and 1 case out of several by a lot and then expected
sit for two hours and provide written answers. TSUL allocates 50 points for the final exam.
Student who get a minimum (56 out of 100) or more score for each module, he officiallycompletes the course program and may move on to the next course.141 However, those students
who cannot obtain a minimum of 56 points even for one subject, will have to study the modulefrom the beginning and will postpone a transfer to the next course.
10 points for oral assesment bysuperviser
30 points for oral ongoingassessment in the classperformance

10 points for oral assesment bysuperviser
10 points for oral assesment bysuperviser

100 points

10 points for written home assignment(2 case studies)
20 points for mid-term exam
10 points for university open book
written session (2 case studies)
30 points for closed book written
session (two theory questions out of 50)
50 points for final exam
20 points for closed book written
session (one case law out of 100)

Fig 3.4: Triple modular assessment mode of the LL.B program of the TSUL. In oral ongoing assessment, a lecturer
evaluates student’s general performance in the class. It is divided into 3 sub-categories each offering 10 points.
Mid-term and final exams compose a written form of assessment which is 70 percent of total exam ratio at the
TSUL.

III.1.e. Graduation requirements/exam(s) for obtaining a degree.
In order to complete their bachelor’s degree, students need to study 29 modules for four
years, (out of which 15 are mandatory and 14 are elective) pass a triple modular assessment mode
which include both oral and written examinations and undertake practice-based internships withlegal departments of state or non-state organizations to gain practical experience.142 In their final
year, students are required to pass state exams on constitutional law and the theory of state and

141
142

Ibid.
Ibid.
51

law and foreign language and, write a graduation thesis of some 10.000 words on their major topic
and hold a public oral defense in front of the specially composed Graduation Commission.143
The final exam on constitutional law is a closed book written exam. This exam’s questions
are prepared by the relevant chairs on the individual slips of paper each containing three questions,out of which - two are on constitutional law (questions could also touch upon other crossly-relatedareas with the constitutional law) and one question on the theory of state and law.144 When a student
appears on the designated day and time for an examination, he draws the questions by a lot andthen may sit for two or three hours and write the answer. English exam combines both written andoral assessment. After writing a free style, short essay, which is not necessarily on a legal topic,
each student undergoes through a short interview with a non-native, local English instructor who
often has no professional skills in teaching English for lawyers.
The graduation thesis is an initial independently researched paper which aims to introduce
undergraduates to the basic, elementary principles of legal research methods and to encouragethem to develop more deeply into their chosen law specialty. 145 Usually LL. B students of the
TSUL submit thesis in Uzbek, Russian or English. It must be more than 10.000 words and containrecommendations on improving particular researched fields. Many students try to tie up theirgraduation thesis to their internship experience with a view of collecting more of a first-hand dataand highlight a practical importance of research work. On the other side, unfamiliar with searchingstrategies, correct usage of a reliable scholarly data, and very immature in proposing adequate
research arguments and recommendations to improve a particular legal field, many students facedifficulties which eventually results in low-quality academic papers. Some students while drafting
their graduation thesis refer to other informal methods, for instance, copying or following the styleof previously submitted works. It eventually reveals another critical problem related to the lowlevel of antiplagiarism culture among many LL. B students.
A board of professors usually referred as the Graduation Commission sits on the oral
defense and briefly questions each student after he has briefly presented the topic. Usually eachdefense takes around 20-25 minutes and afterwards commission issues the results. It is rare thatstudent fails a graduation thesis’s oral defense, however, if such case takes place, a student iseligible to lodge application for the revision or re-examination with the commission itself or rectorof the TSUL. After successful oral defense, graduates obtain a degree of LL. B in Jurisprudence.146
II.1.f. Career placement (legal/para-legal/non-legal)
When successful students complete the undergraduate program, they chose between two
options, attend graduate law program or enter the employment. 147 In the last case, the graduate ismore a labor market product, rather than long-term learning process. Some graduates prefer to“Deputy - Rector Kamalov on the New (Modular) Scheme.,”, The MOJ, Supreme Court, and the Office of theProsecutor-General set up certain graduation qualifications for the TSUL students, which however, very formal innature.
144
The mere existence of exam on such discipline as theory of state and law clearly demonstrates the state-centrism
approach in legal education which is inherited by many other former USSR republics from the socialist legal education
system and still implemented in the study process. Refer further to, Waters, Counsel In The Caucasus, 69.
145
By the time of present research, the TSUL was in process of creating the regulation for the International law
department of the UWED and History and law department of the Karakalpak State University.
146
The way it is written in the diploma - Yurisprdentsiya (Huquqshunoslik).
147
Only students with a master’s degree have the right to teach law at domestic universities.
143

52

work for several years and then apply for a graduate program, usually in law or public
administration.
LL.B. graduates of the TSUL are regarded as trained jurists and, thus, entitled to theemployment in their specialization. It should be noted however, that, such legal education de facto
cannot be regarded as professional legal training but rather comprehensive-general theoreticaleducation.148 Graduates who received education on the basis of state grants, are obliged to workfor the public or private sector at least for three years to obtain their diplomas.149 Such a scheme
raises many reasonable concerns regarding the government’s eligibility to keep grantees’ diplomas
given the fact they have graduated the program and obtained a relevant degree. The TSUL may
assign such graduates for an employment interview into public institutions which offer vacancies
for lawyers but cannot oblige them to work for a public organization for a particular period.
Contract-based students, do not have such obligation and may obtain their diplomas right after
graduation. Unlike graduates who studied on the basis of the state-grants, they do not receive any
job interview offers from the TSUL.
According to the TSUL career development monitoring data, in 2017 graduation year, outof 413 graduates, 278 could quickly seek their employment, while the rest considered graduate
studies or were still in the process of active job application.150 In general, most of the graduateswish to secure employment in the Office of the Prosecutor-General or other law enforcement
agencies in Tashkent or regions where they have a registered residence, however because of therelatively insufficient number of vacancies only a handful of graduates eventually get there. In
2017, many TSUL graduates could receive employment offers in the newly created Bureau for
Enforcement of Judgements under the Prosecutor-General’s Office. Others may start their careerin the MOJ or its regional counterparts from the very bottom of the bureaucratic hierarchy.
Sometimes students also find employment in organizations where they undergo qualification or
diploma internships. Recently, in light of the fact that there is a shortage of lawyers in Uzbekistan,
it is not very problematic for graduates to find a job which involves legal practice.
Some graduates wish to work as practicing lawyers (advokat) and present their clients incourts, however, in light of recent legal amendments, access to the profession of lawyer cannot be
secured immediately upon graduation. Even though until 2008, anyone in Uzbekistan with a law
degree could apply for a license and act as a lawyer151, things have changed after the government
comprehensively revised the Law on the Bar (including its provisions with regard to requirements
to access the profession of lawyer) in December 2008. Current provisions set up a mandatory bar
association membership and requires candidates to demonstrate the law degree, two years ofprofessional experience in any legal profession (that should also include a six-month of

LL. B programs in Uzbekistan, as in many other civil law jurisdictions of the former USSR are different fromprofessional legal training in its Western sense, and can be compared to the ‘well-rounded education’ because, as incase of the UWED, apart from legal disciplines, students spend a plenty amount of time for studying courses on
philosophy, politics, sociology, culture, math, economics, language and other general courses.
149
This system is enforced since 2005. As state-grand based students do not pay their tuition fees, it is generally
considered that they have used public money for their education. Therefore, the government issues graduation
diplomas to this category only after they have worked for the public or private entity in Uzbekistan for three years.
Thus, it is considered that, by working for several years without diploma, a graduate will ‘pay back’ to the government
those assets he used while studying. In the past, it was required to work for the public sector only.
150
TSUL. International department. 2016-17 career development data. Out of 83 master graduates, 69 could quickly
seek employment.
151
No apprenticeship with legal firm was required.
148

53

apprenticeship with a law firm or other law office) and successfully pass the bar examination. 152
Only after successful passing of the bar exam, registering with the MOJ and obtaining a license,
one can act as a lawyer and present their clients in the court.
III.2. Graduate level (LL. M)
The majority of LL. B degree holders from the TSUL apply for jobs and start their careers
from the very bottom of legal profession. Those who wish to continue to the graduate level usually
study at the LL.M programs offered at the TSUL if they pass entry exams successfully. The MOJ
annually defines the number of grant and contract-based quotas for domestic students, whereas
admissions for foreign applicants is exceptionally mandatory tuition fee based. Although before
the number of LL.M programs was ten and included a two-year curriculum, as of 2018-19
academic year, the TSUL master’s department offered six one-year LL.M programs: LL.M in Law
of Public Administration (Gosudarstvennoe upravlenie), LL.M in Labor and Employment Law,
LL.M in Theory and Practice of Criminal Law, LL.M in Law and Business, LL.M in Financial
and Legal Monitoring, LL.M in Law and IT.
III.2.a. Admissions and selection (requirements and entrance exam, admission numbers andstate-sponsored grant/contract-based study, classification by language/regions/gender)
Requirements and entrance exam
The shape and organization of entrance exam fall to the competence of the MOJ and the
TSUL whose rector forms the Admissions Board competent to accept application documents andsupport applicants.153 A candidate applying to the master’s program at the TSUL must submit an
online letter containing an indication of intended specialty, a digital copies of a higher education
diploma and official academic transcript.154 Notably, only law graduates (LL. B or similar diploma
holders) are eligible to apply for studying LL.M at the TSUL.155 As a part of application documents,
a candidate is also required to provide digital copies of passport and photo. At a later stage, theAdmissions Board will verify strictly all copies with original documents. Admissions of
documents normally takes place between July 1 to July 30.156

Law of Uzbekistan on the Bar, (Art 3(1). December 1996, amended in December 2008, hereinafter the Bar) Uzbek
or Russian language versions can be found online at http://www.lex.uz/ru/docs/58372 [accessed on June 6, 2018]
153
Before 2018, entrance exam was composed of two rounds; tests and written exam. Entrance tests included threeblocks of questions on; the Theoretical and Practical Basics of the State and Civil Society Construction, Major Subjects,
and a Foreign Language (a foreign language exam may be waived if an applicant demonstrates an IELTS 5.5 or CEFR
B2). Test State Test Center prepares questions for the entrance test for the TSUL based on the study programs
developed by the TSUL and approved by the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education. Refert further
to III. Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov Respubliki Uzbekistan 206 ob Utverjdenii Polojeniya o Poryadke priema v
Magistraturu Tashkentskogo Gosudarstvennogo Yuridicheskogo Universiteta. July 23, 2013. (Outdated)154
As mentioned in the previous section, in Uzbekistan, those applicants who have studied in the undergraduate levelon the basis of state-supported grants do not receive an original copy of bachelor’s diploma after graduation unlessthey have worked for the public or private sectors in Uzbekistan for three years. In such cases, graduates receive only
a copy of diploma record which, however, may be submitted as a part of application document replacing an original
copy of the diploma.
155
Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov N 502, 2018.
156
http://www.tsul.uz/en/interactive-services/admissions-committee [accessed on August 1, 2018]
152

54

Entrance exam for domestic candidates is a two-hour written assignment composed ofquestions on legal major and foreign language. Legal major block contains contemporary domestic
reforms-related questions peculiar to the intended LL.M direction and aims to evaluate theapplicant’s ability to analyze facts, comprehensively utilize legal sources and propose logicalconclusions on model-legal disputes. It includes one theoretical and two practical questions.
Applicants may choose between taking exam in Russian or Uzbek. Foreign language block(usually English) seeks to evaluate applicant’s skills to read and understand scientific texts (ondomestic-legal reforms) and its terminology. 157 It includes three questions, one on reading
comprehension, and two written assignments.
The Minister of Justice, upon recommendation from the Rector of the TSUL, composes a
special commission several days before the exam and appoints it chairman. This commission
further bears the responsibility to assess entrance exam results. In entrance exam, an applicant may
receive a score of up to 150 (100 for legal major, and 50 for foreign language exam). The highest
score in 2018 composed 124,3. Applicants who disagree with their final results have the right tosubmit a complain to the commission, which is also competent to reconsider the results or leave it
without any changes.158 Applicants who are recipients of various state or presidential scholarships,
enjoy the privilege of enrollment on the non-tuition fee basis and without written exam. According
to the 2018-admissions year results, there was only one such an applicant who could enroll on a
exam-free basis.
Admission of foreign citizens into master programs is exceptionally on a tuition based
system.159 Foreign citizens entering LL.M program of the TSUL do not take any written test, but
only undergo a 20-minutes interview. Interview questions basically aim to evaluate candidates
professional and analytical skills. Out of total 100 points, foreign candidate is expected to receive
55 or more in order to enroll to the master’s program.160 Official enrollment notification comes
only after State Commission has issued a decree on enrollment.

Onlineapplication

Original
documents
verification

Written exam
for citizens

State Comission
issues theenrollment
decisionInterview forforeign citizens

Notification in
the TSUL webpage

Enrollment
proceduresFig 3.5: Admissions process to the LL.M level of the TSUL according to the new 2018 admissions rules.
Candidates with the В2 CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference), 6,0 points in IELTS (International
English Language Testing System) or 95 points on TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) or ТD N 3
TestDaF (Test Deutsch als Fremdsprache fur auslandische Studienbewerber) obtain the maximum score without
taking English exam.
158
Chapter 1-3, Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov N 502.
159
Foreign students should provide the following documents to apply for Master’s degree: Application addressed to
the rector of the higher educational institution (indicating the citizenship and chosen specialty); Original passport(copy will be provided to the Admissions Committee); A copy of the document of the residence permit in Uzbekistan;
Original diploma and its applications, as well as their notarized translation into Uzbek or Russian languages: 6 photos(color) 3,5 х 4,5; Medical certificate form U-086. The list of foreign students who submitted their documents to themaster’s degree is subject to expert examination in an appropriate order. Admission of foreign students is determinedon the basis of the results of the examination and the relevant decree of the State Commission. Foreign students areadmitted only on the basis of the paid contract and payment is made in the equivalent of foreign currency.
160
Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov N 502.
157

55

Admission numbers and state-sponsored grant/contract-based study
In the academic year 2018-19, the presidential decree stipulated the total quota of 150
students for admissions into six LL.M programs at the TSUL. 161 This quota did not stipulate any
state-sponsored grants and therefore, all 150 seats were contract-based. Out of 167 applicants only
116 (less than quota offer) could successfully pass entrance exams and enroll into six various LL.M
degree programs.
(Refer to the Figure below)

200
150
150

167

100

116

50
0
Quota

AppliedEnrolled

Fig 3.6: Admissions quota to the LL.M level of the TSUL in 2018-16 2018 academic year.
Source, TSUL. International Department.

For instance, in the previous 2017-18 academic year, the quota for LL.M composed only
120 of paid contract placements (similarly, no state grants), whereas the number of LL.M programs
was 10. Such figures demonstrate that the number of admissions into master’s programs of the
TSUL is increasing annually, and state offers no funds for state-sponsored placements. 162 On theother hand, LL.M majors have greatly decreased from 10 to only six.
In 2018, such LL.M programs as Law of Public Administration and Law and Business,given their wider employment perspectives in public agencies and recent, keen interest incommercial or investment disputes attracted the highest number of applications and became themost competitive directions. The Criminal law is a direction traditionally popular among maleapplicants who aim to advance their careers at law enforcement agencies and therefore, the numberof female applicants to this program is always minimal. Such recent novelties as LL.M in Law andIT, and Financial and Legal Monitoring appeared as the least attractive programs which received
the smallest number of applications.163 Hence, according to the number of submitted documents,
the admissions coefficient ranged between 1,1-0,5 candidate per seat and therefore, was not very
competitive.

Postanovlenie Prezidenta N3666.
Some LL. B graduates however, who have received honors from president-affiliated youth programs theoretically
can be admitted on a state-grant basis without exams. Refer also to, sec 3-7, O’zbekiston Respublikasining Vazirlar
Mahkamasining Qarori, Oliy Ta’lim Muassasalarga O’qishga Qabul Qilish, N 393, 2017.
163
Notably, in the previous year, the specialty which attracted the largest number of master students was the Law of
Public Administration - 21 students, whereas the smallest number of students - only four applied to study Law of
Natural Resources.
161
162

56

Table 3.5: State standard numbers, directions, quota in language perspective, the number of submitted applications,and the number of applicants per place (competition level) for 2018-19 admissions year. Source: (TSUL
Admissions commission)

Upon admission, all master students receive a monthly stipend to cover a certain amount ofliving expenses. This stipend may be increased for excellent marks. Furthermore, LL.M students
have a right to work on a part-time basis, including in the TSUL itself as administering or assisting
staff.
Classification by language/regions/gender
Each of the LL.M program offers placement in groups with Uzbek (Natspotok), or Russian
Evropotok) as the main language of instruction. According to the 2018 admissions round quota,
out of 150 seats, 106 were allocated for LL.M programs with Uzbek as the main language of
instruction and 44 - for Russian.

Table 3.6: The quota for 2018-19 admissions round for the TSUL’s LL.M Programs in Uzbek and Russian
language groups. Source: (TSUL Admissions commission)57

According to the 2018 admissions
Fig 3.7: Language of Education dynamics in the
results, out of 116 enrolled students, 78
TSUL LL.M
enrolled into Uzbek groups, whereas
only 38 into Russian. For instance, in the 100
78
76
previous year, out of 120 master students,
70
76 studied law in Uzbek language, and 50
50
44
38
the remaining 44 enrolled into Russian
language course. Present and a statistical0from previous admissions demonstrates
Prior 2016
2017
2018
that quota for students enrolling into
Rus
Uz
Natspotok is annually increasing, while
admission numbers into Evropotok is
gradually decreasing. This tendency is obvious not only in the case of the TSUL but also manyother HEIs in Uzbekistan and other post-Soviet republics, because of the promotion ofmonolingual policies and gradual outflow of Russian speaking population.164
A recent, 2017 Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers also presupposes the admission
quotes in HEIs for regions which require specialists with a master’s degree.165 Given the specificsof the master programs of the TSUL, such quota apparently targets legal professionals whose
shortage is apparent in certain regions of Uzbekistan.166 However, there is no practices available
to date, demonstrating about the process of such regional quota admissions in the TSUL.
There is no gender restrictions according to
the admission guidelines of the LL.M programs of the
MALE-FEMALE PROPORTION
TSUL. Nevertheless, an existing statistical data Female
demonstrates that the number of women enrolled in
21%
LL.M programs in 2018 is less than a quarter of thetotal admissions. Reasons for such a visible gap are
similar to those in LL.B program.
Fig 3.8: A number of admitted students to the TSUL LL.M inacademic years between 2018 in gender perspective. (It isalmost similar to that of LL. B program were the number offemale entrants also does not increase a quarter out of total
students’ number).

Male
79%

Out of six master programs, Public Administration Law, and Law and Business, given theirwider employment opportunities and a recent, keen interest in domestic and international trade andinvestment disputes, seem to be the most attractive for both male and female applicants. The
Criminal law is a traditionally male-dominated field because it paves the way for a good career inlaw enforcement agencies, especially at public prosecutor’s office or internal affairs. Notably,
Labor law is also popular only among male applicants. The number of female students enrolling
Refer also to, Waters, Counsel In The Caucasus.
O’zbekiston Respublikasining Vazirlar Mahkamasining Qarori, Oliy Ta’lim Muassasalarga O’qishga Qabul Qilish,
N 393, 2017.
166
Sec 7 ibid. In particular, scholars of the state grants initiated by the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan andwinners of state competitions whose specialty is relevant to the proposed master’s program can be enrolled without
exam and on the basis of the extra state-grants.
164
165

58

into this program is critically low.167 Financial and Legal Monitoring as well as Law and IT arerecent programs which attracted the smallest number of candidates and it is unclear yet how
competitive these majors will be in the future.

2018 LL.M Admissions
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

45

45
36

35
30 28

26

26

25

10 9 8 1

2

PublicLabor Law
Administration

Criminal Law

9

Total Quota

Admitted11
Law andBusinessMale

10 5 3 1

10 3 3 0

Financial andLegal
Monitoring

Law and IT

FemaleFig 3.9: 2018 LL.M programs and admissions numbers, including division into male and female proportions ineach program. TSUL, Admissions

III.2.b. LL. M Curriculum (preparatory process, time division and academic disciplines,
internship)
Preparatory process
De jure, it is the TSUL which implements academic standards for its LL.M programs under
the state standards, 5A240108 - LL.M in Law of Public Administration, 5A240115 - LL.M inLabor and Employment Law, 5A240116 - LL.M in Theory and Practice of Criminal Law,
5A240118 - LL.M in Law and Business, 5A240119 - LL.M in Financial and Legal Monitoring,
5A240120 - LL.M in Law and IT. These codes include formal qualification requirements fortraining specialists (LL.M) in the relevant fields. Codified databases formally regulate academic
disciplines, curriculums, semesters, qualification internships, and assessment control.168 De facto,
the regulation of graduate LL.M level research often falls into the area of MOHSSE’s centralized
governance, which often bans the TSUL to practice an unlimited control over its LL.M students.169
Time division and academic disciplines
Within the last ten years, the TSUL’s LL.M program faced several modifications. Somechanges made it slightly more research oriented than before, whereas certain initiatives remain
somewhat unclear. In particular, the TSUL decreased greatly or transferred to the elective mode
For example, only one out of 9 students in 2018 admissions.
The 2001 State Educational Standards Regulation. Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov Respubliki Uzbekistan ob
Utverjdenii Gosudarstvennyh Obrazovatel’nyh Standartov Vysshego Obrazovaniya. S izmeneniyami i dopolneniyami,
N23, 2017.
169
According to the TSUL, the MOHSSE often restricts the TSUL to penalize and dismiss students with unsatisfactory
academic performance.
167
168

59

most of master curriculum’s common-methodological and theoretical disciplines. Hence,comparatively to the previous curriculum, LL.M program allocates more time for independent
research activities. In light of 2018 recent academic reforms, the length of the TSUL’s LL.M
program was decreased from two years to just one. 170 One-year master course was obviously
copied from certain Western models which offer LL.M degree based on an intensive legal
training.171 Notably, in Europe such LL.M programs are often followed by the four-year doctoral
course, what eventually makes the length of the graduate studies - five years. Furthermore, theWestern one-year master programs usually require a small number of credits and short master’s
thesis (or several research reports if it the program which does not require a written master’s thesis).
Eventually, LL.M degree in Europe train legal professionals rather than legal scholars who aim toteach at law schools. On the other hand, the LL.M in Uzbekistan has always remained as afundamental, research-oriented program with a whole bunch of theoretical disciplines, and its
sudden gravitation towards a short-term intensive course raises many questions with regards to its
character and aims. Furthermore, LL.M diploma holders in Uzbekistan enjoy a privilege ofentering the HEIs and teaching law to students. In this regard, newly introduced one-year LL.M
program in Uzbekistan will additionally question the quality of future legal educators.
Until 2018, in order to obtain a master’s degree, students had to undergo a two-year course,
composed of legal specialty and non-legal modules, mainly pedagogy and state-ideology related
disciplines, commence continuous internship, pass final exams, submit master’s thesis and defend
it publicly. Each academic year was divided into two semesters, making it four in total. Everysemester was composed of about 17 teaching weeks.172 Master students carried a burden of 36
hours of fundamental lectures, seminars (including elective part) and scientific-research work per
week which was mandatory for all. The curriculum of each program speculated four electives andthree to four mandatory specialty modules.173

By the time of drafting present research, TSUL published no clear syllabi for a new one-year LL.M program andtherefore, author described mainly the developments between 2013-2018. In light of the reforms, one may assume,
however, that shortening the LL.M program into one year will increase the amount of academic burden (specialty
modules only) and decrease the time for self-research. Postanovlenie Prezidenta N3666.
171
As an example, the Riga Graduate School of Law (RGSL) in Latvia offers one-year intensive LL.M programs inseveral directions. Under this program, a student is supposed to gather a limited number of credits and draft a master’s
paper.
172
The last (fourth) semester contained 21 weeks.
173
These elective disciplines included; teaching methodic of specialized disciplines and decision-making theory in all
LL.M Programs. Separately, there are additional two specialty-related disciplines in each program.
170

60

LL.M in Law of Public
Administration

LL.M in Tax andCustoms Law•Administrative
procedures•Legislative technique•Decision theory•International tax law•Customs law•Internationalcommercial law•Legal regulation offinancial institutions

LL.M in Corporate
Law

LL.M in Law of
Natural Resources

LL.M in Labor and
Employment Law•Corporate acts
•Corporate
governance•Legal Regulation of
the Securities
market•Exchange law•The law of oil andgas•Energy law•Land law•International law oftransnational water
environment•Environmental
observation•International laborlaw•Legal regulation of
the employment
relationship in thecontext ofglobalisation

LL.M in Business Law•Corporate law•Tax law•Contract law

LL. M in International
Comercial Law•Internationalcommercial law•Law of transnational
corporations•International
investment law

LL. M in Criminal Law•International
criminal trial andlegal assistance incriminal matters•Grounds of proof incriminal proceedings•Crimes in the sphereof economic andmanagement

LL.M in Contract Law•Contract law•Tax law•Contractural law

LL.M in Forensics andCriminalistics•Theory and practiceof appointing andimplementation
expertice

Table 3.7: Ten LL.M programs and respective mandatory specialty modules at the TSUL before 2018.

As mentioned above, starting from 2018-19 admissions year, several directions, including
visibly popular, like Corporate law, and Contract law ceased to exist and the number of LL.M
programs was decreased to only six. Within these six, there are two totally new for Uzbek legal
science directions; Financial and Legal Monitoring, and Law and IT. Introduction of these two
unique programs is undoubtedly an important move towards the diversification of undergraduate
legal education. One can additionally suppose that these their appearance in the TSUL is a productof external influence. The question which remains open is who and how will be supervising these
programs and teaching its relevant modules. If, for example, the Law and IT LL.M program shouldnecessarily involve a module on cyber law and crimes, one can hardy find a relevant specialist(s),research resources and any existing materials from domestic-legal practices in Uzbekistan. Hence,in the circumstances of limited recourses, and if supervisors commence these pioneer programs in
an unprepared manner (without attracting specialists from aside), the TSUL will risk facing many
practical obstacles which might eventually result in failure of this positive initiative.
5A240108
LL.M in Law of Public
Administration-Administrative procedures;-Legislative technique;-International-legal
responsibility;-State services;

5A240115
LL.M in Labor and Employment
Law-International labor law;
-Legal regulation of theemployment relationship in thecontext of globalization;-Pension law;
-Labor disputes;

5A240116
LL.M in Theory and Practice of
Criminal Law-Criminal punishment and its
application rules;-Judicial control;-Crimes in the sphere of
economic and management;-Proof in criminal proceedings;

5A240118
LL.M in Law and Business

5A240119
LL.M in Financial and Legal
Monitoring

5A240120
LL.M in Law and IT

61

-Corporate law;-Tax law;-Contract law;

-Financial law-IT law

Table 3.8: LL.M programs and respective mandatory specialty modules at the TSUL after 2018. (TSUL,International department)

Academic disciplines
In general, the curriculums of all LL.M programs look very similar in terms of separationof hours for research and dissertation writing, and internship period.174 Only specific and someelective legal modules may vary depending on the LL.M direction. Previously, much of the firstyear which started in September and finished in June and the first semester of the second year weredevoted to studying the so-called common-methodological disciplines. Such mandatory
disciplines included: strategy of socio-economic development of Uzbekistan, research methods,
pedagogy, foreign-practical language (usually English), and IT (computer science). It was
expected that by concentrating on, for instance, the research methods, master students would gain
knowledge necessary for conducting a graduate level research and would additionally, skill up inteaching law. Curriculum also offered four elective modules, decision making theory, teaching
methodic of specialized disciplines, and two specialty-related disciplines for each program.175
It is unclear yet how such disciplines will be incorporated into one-year curriculum. By
taking into consideration a general international trend in LL.M programs, TSUL will have either
to reorient LL.M curriculum into practice-oriented direction only and slightly decrease its
requirements for master’s thesis, or continue with numerous major, theory and pedagogy related
modules. In the last case, the TSUL will have to carefully consider an option of a non-written
master thesis course, otherwise, LL.M program will change into short and unreasonably
burdensome program.
Presently, such modules as research methods, IT (computer science), foreign practicallanguage intend to provide students with some practical skills of learning and applying various
legal research methods, for example, work with bibliographical data, and obtain initial skills indrafting research papers. Introduction of such advanced research disciplined originating in western
legal education systems is a complete novelty for graduate law students in Uzbekistan. Because of
the absence or critical shortage of relevant specialists and professional literature on commencing
legal research and drafting academic papers in law, their implementation remains ambiguous.
InternshipPreviously, even when the LL.M remained as the research, rather than practice-oriented
study, all students had to undergo a regular internship (Kvalifikatsionnaya praktika). It is a wellestablished practice that master students undertake their legal research in close cooperation withpractitioners of legal institutions or departments where they can obtain more practical knowledge
and research data for their dissertations. Usually LL.M students undergo their internships in law
enforcement agencies, courts, MOJ, relevant ministries or private law firms. As an example, in
Until 2018, within the first three semesters, LL.M students had to cover about 10-15 modules, do their researchand internship. In the fourth semester students were expected to dedicate their time for research, internship andcompleting drafting their dissertation.
175
The majority of modules were taught in Uzbek and Russian languages. Some modules, for example corporate
governance were taught in English.
174

62

2016-17 academic year, out of 112 second-year master students, 70 were assigned to 32 publicorganizations the rest opted for the private sector.176
III.2.c. Teaching methods and assessment
Post-2013 reforms brought in a handful of young specialists with relatively creative and up
to date ideas and skills, particularly towards interactive way of teaching law. Even though reforms
did not change the traditional ‘top-down’ method of lecturing entirely, they have acknowledged
and formalized the necessity of interactive legal education within the syllabus system. Presently,
the TSUL is in the initial stage of gravitating from the predominantly ex-cathedra method oflecturing towards the problem-solving and analytical discussion methods. Yet it is unclear how
long and how successful the factual transition to modern methods of teaching law in Uzbekistan
will be. As many instructors still lack the necessary skills in commencing active learning sessions,sharing with and learning from international partners who prove successful in implementing suchclasses is one of the crucial preconditions for resultative future of the LL.M.
By pausing on functional disconnection of legal education from legal practice, the TSUL
has recently initiated a broader involvement of practitioners in the process of teaching LL.M
students not only a black letter law but also its practical implementation. While some of thepractice-oriented classes slowly gravitate towards ‘personal experience stories’ or experimental‘question-answer’ sessions, some students report that certain specialists from outside indeed
successfully combine the theory-practice based approach in their lectures. As this system is yet
premature in Uzbekistan, there is no unified approach among part-time practitioners from outside
as to the most effective teaching methods to implement in-class practical training. Elaborating suchmethods or at least, model theory-practice oriented class design would help to create more efficient
practice-oriented curricula focused on combatting inefficiencies of the legal profession.
Another remarkable novelty is the distribution of necessary reading data and examquestions through information and communication technology accessible by LL.M students.
Although the TSUL is still far from offering access to authoritative legal research databases andreferencing or academic tools, offering open access to at least some general reading materials is
an advantage for students in terms of slightly stimulating independent research. Certain steps
towards a wider utilizing authoritative legal databases, especially in foreign languages and fromvarious legal systems would be crucial do develop LL.M level student’s knowledge on their majors
in the comparative perspective.
TSUL implements a multi-stage assessment mode for LL.M students including throughseveral written and oral exams. Final written exams are closed book sessions and students have torely on explicitly on memorized information and skills in resolving certain legal disputes. Class
participation in which supervisors can evaluate the analytical, problem-solving skills plays adominant role as well. There is no credit system of grades. Assessment is carried through the samerating system as in the LL.B.
III.2.d. Graduation requirements/exam(s) for obtaining a degree
To obtain a master’s degree, LL.M students need to attend all mandatory modules andundertake practice-based internship with legal departments of public or non-public organizations.
While commencing the internship students must skill up in certain professional areas and collect176

Obtained from http://www.tsul.uz/ru/struktura/otdeli/otdel-magistraturi [accessed January 6, 2018].
63necessary research data for their master’s thesis. As a final stage, students pass the state attestation(exam) on one profile discipline and write a thesis on their major topic.
The final state attestation is a form of exam on specialty module which may be conductedin oral, written or in the form of tests.177 As a rule, professors and other staff from the relevant
chairs create the program of the state attestation for specific specialty module in close cooperation
with scholars from external organizations who can advise additionally from theoretical or
professional viewpoints. Every final state attestation program also undergoes screening by the
Academic Council of the TSUL.
Final attestation exam seeks to evaluate LL.M students’ theoretical knowledge, practicalskills, and ability to apply gained academic skills in future legal profession. Annually, chairs
upload each exam’s questions to the webpage approximately one month before the exam date.
Hence, students have enough time to get familiar with questions (which include both, domestic
and foreign legislation) shape of the exam and general requirements to the examinees. Final exam
is not an open book session and, therefore, requires that students memorize law and theory. On adesignated day, LL.M students come and sit for a couple of hours to provide their written answers
for exam questions chosen by a lot. All LL.M students also take exam on practical foreign language,
which is usually English and includes written and oral assessment.
The final step is a master’s thesis examination. According to the guidelines, the thesis is anindependently written research paper which requires students to demonstrate their awareness oftheoretical and practical aspects in their chosen fields. Furthermore, the theoretical aspects of themaster’s thesis must be applied or tested in practice. In other words, LL.M students, in the processof their graduate studies, must promote their research ideas with various public structures with aview to finally implement them. Such requirement raises many reasonable concerns additionallywith regard to the academic immatureness of Uzbek LL.M candidates to make proposals or
implement own recommendations into real legal practice. This requirement also remains
somewhat unfeasible for students in light of the fact that curriculum does not stipulate any relevant
modules on legal policy-making or clear guidelines on how to implement thesis outcomes into
practice. Compared to general trends, the LL.M thesis must rather be qualitative, raise a concrete
research question or argument and involve available academic discussion based on scientificarguments. While such elementary academic necessities remain sporadic in the thesis writing
guidelines, placing such a serious academic value to offer proposals for domestic legal practices
appears unrealistic.
Scholars and practitioners who form the State Attestation Commission preside during theoral defense and briefly question each student after he has presented own topic. Usually eachdefense takes around 20-25 minutes and afterwards commission issues results. It is rare that student
fails a graduation thesis’s oral defense, however, if such case takes place, a student is eligible tolodge application for the revision or re-examination of the results with the commission itself or
TSUL’s rector. After successful oral defense, graduates obtain a degree of LL.M.
III.2.e. Career placement (legal/para-legal/non-legal)
As long as LL.M graduates are considered as young researchers they have the right to teachin HEIs in Uzbekistan. So, some graduates start their career as a junior faculty member in one of
The contents and the form are to be decided by the special council (Kengash) and confirmed by the Rector. Referto the typical exam program on the final attestation, http://www.tsul.uz/en/education/magistracy [accessed August 3,
2018].
17764the academic chairs of the university on a full or part-time basis. Traditionally, a small amount ofthem later apply for doctoral courses (PhD). Others seek employment as law professionals inpublic or non-public sectors and, often, their possession of a master’s degree in law is highly
evaluated by the perspective employer. Furthermore, master’s degree may contribute in terms ofcareer promotion for those working in the public sector and even result in extra payments to theirsalaries. Comparatively to graduates from humanities and science, law graduates, especially thosewith LL.M degree rarely chose non-specialty employment because public and private sectors
relatively often offer vacancies for lawyers.
III.3. Law chairs, centers and faculty staff profile

Figure 3.10: Post-2017 Organizational-administrative structure of the TSUL.178

Within each course, headed by a dean, the key structural units are the chairs of law createdfor particular branches of legal and non-legal subjects. In Soviet times, it was usually a professor
who headed the chairs. Presently, the TSUL’s academic policy cares less about the academic title
but instead requires the person who is heading the chair to possess organizational skills, creativeideas and readiness to devote plenty of time to the chair’s academic and non-academic affairs.
Senior and junior teachers of a similar specialization group around the head of a chair. Each chair
has its office within the TSUL where its members may conduct their research or deal with relevantteaching and other issues.179 Before 2017, there were 9 chairs, however, by 2017, the total number
Postanovlenie Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan 2932 O merakh Po Korennomu Sovershenstvovaniyu Sistemi i
Povisheniyu Effektivnosti Podgotovki Kadrov v Tashkentskom Gosudarstvennom Yuridicheskom Universitete. April
28, 2017.
179
Sometimes, a student who specializes in the same law area work in the chair on a non-paid base.
178

65

of chairs is 14.180 The TSUL decided to increase the number of chairs in hope that it will help tosimplify and speed up general academic affairs workload.
A head of the chair appoints a member of the chair as a particular module supervisor. This
supervisor bears the responsibility for teaching quality, assessment and preparation of study
materials which should be including books approved by the MOHSSE, cases, and/or other researchdata. 181 Upon preparation of study and research resources, every module supervisor must uploadthem into specific module folders within the TSUL database which is accessible by all students.182
Sometimes, the module folders offer students such essential resources as handout materials, videos
and exam questions. The Academic Registrar’s Department is a recent novelty which acts in close
cooperation with chairs and integrated multiple functions partly obtained from dean’s offices.183
Centers
In 2013, a former Institute of Philosophy and Law under the Academy of Sciences of
Uzbekistan was reorganized into the Center for Legal Research (CLR) and placed as a separate
unit within the TSUL. According to the regulation, CLR is intended to promote domestic research
related to law and democratization as well as collaborate in legal drafting and enforcement politics.
One of the responsibilities of the CLR also includes developing study materials for TSUL andother law teaching HEIs. 184 Practical aspects of the CLR’s activities have not demonstrated any
outstanding education or research achievements yet, possibly, because of the fact that it does notstimulate the work of recognized scholars and maintains no modest or no ties with foreign anddomestic partners.
The Center for Retraining and Improving the Qualification of Teaching Staff is a recent
unit at the TSUL aimed at retraining law mentors teaching in secondary-specialized education
institutions, such as law colleges and lyceum. Furthermore, it offers some advanced courses forteachers of law in higher educational institutions. 185 This center was established in 2017, andtherefore is now in its initial stage of activities.

The Chair of Theory of State and Law, the Chair of Public (State (Gosudarstvennoe)) Law and Administration, theChair of Civil Law, the Chair of Civil – Procedural Law, the Chair of Criminal Law, the Chair of Criminal - Procedural
Law, the Chair of Labor Law, the Chair of Business Law, the Chair of Ecological and Agrarian Law, the Chair ofInternational Public Law, the Chair of International-Commercial Law, Language Training Center, the Chair of NonProfile Disciplines, the Chair of Tax and Customs Law.
181
Postanovlenie Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan 1990, O Merah po Dal’neyshemu Sovershenstvovaniuy Sistemy
Podgotovki Yuridicheskih Kadrov. June 28, 2013.
182
Refer to, www.mytsul.uz
183
The main tasks of the Academic Registrar’s Office include, the educational and methodological activities of theuniversity, monitoring the development and implementation of curricula in the educational process, establishing theschedule of hours of the teaching staff and monitoring their performance, monitoring the quality of teaching, theprocess of various technologies and the analysis of their effective use, forming state attestation commissions for the
final state attestation and organizing their activities, as well as the development of proposals to improve the quality of
examinations and the development of students’ self-study skills. Refer to; http://www.tsul.uz/en/structure/academicregistrar-s-office [accessed on August 6, 2018]
184
Postanovlenie Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan 1990, O Merah po Dal’neyshemu Sovershenstvovaniuy Sistemy
Podgotovki Yuridicheskih Kadrov. June 28, 2013.
185
Postanovlenie Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan 2932 O merakh Po Korennomu Sovershenstvovaniyu Sistemi i
Povisheniyu Effektivnosti Podgotovki Kadrov v Tashkentskom Gosudarstvennom Yuridicheskom Universitete. April
28, 2017.
180

66

Faculty staff profile
The TSUL widely adheres to the Soviet style of academic posts and rankings. While
entering legal academic profession as a junior, one takes a position of assistant lecturer and thengrows to senior lecturer. Later, usually close to 40, one may become assistant professor and finally,
after 10 or more years - a professor. Usually the positions of associate professor and professor can
only be obtained by experienced lecturers who wrote their doctoral dissertations, obtained relevant
degrees and produced volumes of high-quality research.186 However, there are many exceptional
cases when outstanding lecturers were granted the title of associate professor without necessarily
obtaining doctoral degree.
Full-time associate professors and lecturers carry a heavy burden of academic andadministrative work. Even though TSUL is in its initial way of introducing active learning methods,
most of lecturers were educated domestically and thus, face difficulties in switching from oldfashioned format of teaching black letter law to the Socratic method. Most of the teachers aregraduates of the TSUL who experienced only a top-down method of teaching and learning law.
Some senior members studied in the former law faculty of the TSU (TashGU). Recently, the TSUL
increasingly attracts practitioners from aside to teach on a part-time basis in order to make study
process less static. However, practitioners’ courses rarely prove to be dynamic and interactive,
mainly because such practitioners lack relevant skills and simply do not have enough time forpreparing to lecture and searching study materials for their students. Furthermore, given the natureof practitioner’s main job, they often have to skip classes and university has to ask other full-time
instructors for a temporary replacement. In such circumstances and given the shortage of lecturers
at the TSUL, many full-time instructors, often from different departments, take in an obligatory
way an additional burden of teaching work. Some are even asked to teach disciplines they havenever mastered before.
A very limited number of faculty members who studied abroad try to widely promoteinteractive study in the faculty. While they are committed to incorporate their experience gained
abroad into the academic process, they virtually come into conflict with some seniors who oppose
the direct implementation of Western. Nevertheless, the TSUL demonstrates some positive signsof gradual switching into interactive learning and the majority of lecturers seem to support it.
Nearly all faculty members with foreign degrees simultaneously teach in different universities ortake second jobs (usually in well paid foreign NGOs) because of the low, unsatisfactory salaries.
Such negative tendency eventually results in brain-drain from law faculties.
Chair

Business law
Theory of State and Law
PublicLaw
andAdministration
Criminal Law
Criminal
Procedural
Law

Total quota for
lecturers

Total number oflecturers

Professors DSc(Doktor Nauk)

20
14
9

16
7
8

2
3
1

Assoc.
Professors(Kandidat Naukor Ph.D)
0
4
2

16
15

16
14

3
0

2
5

In Uzbekistan, it is usually; Candidate of Legal Science (C.L.C) which has been recently replaced with PH.D. andDoctor of Legal Science (D.Sc.).
186

67

Labor Law
Language
Training
CenterCommon
Methodological
Subjects
Civil Law
Civil Procedural Law
International
PublicLaw
International
Commercial Law
Ecological and AgrarianLaw
Physical Training
Total

7
33

7
28

0
2

1
3

23

23

0

5

16
15
11

4
19
10

3
0
0

4
6
2

7

5

0

2

7

3

1

3

5
198

5
165

15

0
39

Table 3.9: Statistical data on teaching and research support staff at the TSUL for 2017-2018 academic year.
Source: TSUL, International Department.

III.4. Library and resources
The TSUL inherited from its predecessor - the law faculty of the TSU (TashGU) an
extensive law library composed basically of high-quality research and study resources on socialist
law. These resources were further transmitted to the Information and Resources Center (IRC) at
the TSUL.187 Up to date, IRC contains about 274.000 hard copies of predominantly domestic books
and periodicals published both in the USSR and Independence periods.188 Furthermore, the IRC islisted among the institutions which regularly obtains laws, regulations and other relevant updates
from public organs.189 One of the positive developments is that IRC has initially started providing
referencing and citation services for students, faculty members and other researchers. In addition
to that, IRC maintains two electronic catalogues and e-data circulation system which informs
faculty about newly arrived bibliography. 190 Foreign partners and donors have been also
contributing certain books and periodicals to the IRC.191
In the last couple of decades, the TSUL has published itself and obtained books on various
legal disciplines. Authored mainly in Uzbek and sometimes in Russian, these publications intended
to fill an existing gap of limited resources about local legal system. The quality of such books is

In accordance with the Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan of June 20 2006 No. PD-381 On theorganization of information and library services for the population of the Republic, the library of the Institute wastransformed into the Information and Resource Center. (IRC) The IRC of TSUL was further reformed in accordancewith the Decrees of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan of June 28, 2013 No. PD-1990 On measures of further
improving the system of pre-service training of legal personnel and of 28 April 2017 No. PD-2932 On measures ofradical improvement of the system and increasing the efficiency of staff training in Tashkent State University of Law.
188
Up to date it contains about 274024 items, legal science - 65489 items, pedagogy - 97475, dissertation depository- 1987 items. International Department, 2018.
189
Postanovlenie Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan 1990, O Merah po Dal’neyshemu Sovershenstvovaniuy Sistemy
Podgotovki Yuridicheskih Kadrov. June 28, 2013.
190
ARMAT and KaDaTa. GERMES.
191
For example, Glasgow University - 146 books, Nagoya University - 36 books, Boston School of Law - 86 books.
187

68

often ambiguous given the methodology, style and bibliographical sources, which are limited tolegal statutes and a very small number of similar domestic or Russian studies.
Another critical aspect which is partly affected by the underfunding issue is a limited accessto legal research databases. Even though university runs the IRC, its database is limited to thescanned materials of some usually outdated Russian or Uzbek-based studies and, sometimes, oldEnglish articles. There is also no professor or faculty member who would professionally train
about IT assisted legal research, legal styles and provide other forms of IT research support witha focus on separate legal disciplines. Critical aspects also touch upon legal literature in foreign
languages, basically in English. Given the high market prices of new legal publications, andrestricted budget of the TSUL’s library, recent legal studies remain largely unavailable.
Furthermore, there is no access to any of the English based legal research databases; like JSTOR,
HeinOnline, EBSCO etc.
III.5. International cooperation
The TSUL has several international agreements for research cooperation and faculty
staff/student exchange with foreign academic institutions and research entities particularly in Asia.
For example, Nagoya University, which is one of the hubs for university network in Asia
established partner ties with the TSUL back in 2000s. In particular, Center for Asian Legal
Exchange (CALE) and Graduate School of Law of Nagoya University launched in 2005 theResearch and Education Center for Japanese Law (CJL) at the TSUL to provide educational
opportunities for undergraduate students of the TSUL to study Japanese legal systems in Japanese
language. Specially designed CJL program is split into two steps and enables undergraduate
students to study on the extracurricular basis, Japanese language academic skills, and then, during
the second year, Japanese history, politics, society, and law. CALE regularly dispatches to
Tashkent native Japanese language instructors who, in close collaboration with locally recruitedspecialists intensively train TSUL LL.B students. Nagoya University organizes summer seminars
as well as admits to the Graduate School of Law of Nagoya University those graduates who
demonstrated outstanding academic performance in CJL.192 By 2017, 54 of the TSUL graduatesobtained their master degrees at Nagoya University (GSL). Apart from Nagoya University, theTSUL also maintains academic ties with Osaka University.193
In 2013-2014, the TSUL has concluded academic agreement with the North-West
University of Politics and Law (China), and a cooperation memorandum with the East-Chinese
University of Political Science and Law (China). Both agreements target mainly researchcooperation, and to a lesser degree - academic exchange. 194
In 2016, the TSUL concluded academic agreement with the German University of
Administrative Sciences (Speyer), and German Research Institute for Public Administration. In
2017, the TSUL signed a memorandum with the Boston College Law School (Program for
Refer for further details, http://cale.law.nagoya-u.ac.jp/about_us/kyoten_eng.html or http://cjl.law.nagoyau.ac.jp/content/2 [accessed on August 6, 2018]193
In 2016, a professor of the Graduate school of law and political science of Osaka University was appointed as aVice-Dean in charge of the Center for Retraining and Improving qualification of teaching staff which is a recent unit
at the TSUL. Such appointment came as a part of activities initiated by a recent gravitation of the higher educational
system of Uzbekistan towards internationalization. This position is however formal and does not require Japanese
professor’s regular presence in Tashkent.
194
Similar agreements were also concluded with the Toulouse 1 Capitole University and Shanghai University of
Politics and Law.
192

69

trainings teaching skill developments of TSUL lecturers) and now in the process of elaborating
academic cooperation and exchange programs. There are also cooperation ties and activities withforeign research organizations which often act as donors in international scientific or academic
projects. For example, the Konrad Adenauer Program is one of those initiatives which focusesaround training and short-term courses for the teachers in their subject areas, organization ofconferences, roundtables, developing materials and research publications.
Sub-Conclusion to the Chapter
The TSUL is a leading HEI in Uzbekistan de facto pertaining a monopoly on domestic
legal education. Absence of any form of private higher legal education and 2013 reforms which
terminated a handful of other local law faculties, restricts access to legal education in the regions
and heavily centralizes it around the TSUL which is situated in the capital city. In fact, out of 788
students admitted in 2018, only 149 are from Tashkent, whereas 634 came from regions. Theirdaily and accommodation expenses in the capital city, as well as the highest, among the domestic
HEIs, tuition fee is a heavy burden on their family’s budget, because traditionally, Uzbek market
does not offer part-time jobs for students with adequate salaries for covering mentioned expenses
and there is also no flexible education loan system.
In the context of limitation of state-sponsored grants, a gradually increasing quota forcontract-based study and amount of its tuitions fee as well as admissions based on extra highpayment rates (up to 30.000 USD), is another point of concern demonstrating certain signs of legal
education’s gravitating towards commercialization. It is a commonly accepted fact that public
HEIs in Uzbekistan desperately need funds, including extra budget assets, to develop theirinfrastructure and address numerous academic and human resources related issues. On the other
hand, incomparably low wages in Uzbekistan and absence of alternative options, make it nearly
impossible for many middle-class families to afford covering legal studies of their kids.
Admissions policy also attracts critics regarding a limited access to legal education forfemale. Recent amendments which offer admissions exam benefits to male candidates with amilitary background heavily limit female candidates’ chances to just and equal access to legal
education. On the other hand, similarly to the practices from many other states, the government
needs to stimulate and raise the prestige of its military service and offer certain benefits to themilitary men. In this regard, tenses would be less serious and access to the education would beequal for all if the government could consider in the nearest future a separate quota for such
military men.
Within several years the legal curriculum has undergone major changes. Terminating many
humanity and common-methodological disciplines in favor of specialty modules demonstrates a
gradual shift from theoretical to practical character of education. This is obviously the most criticalaspect of reform because it aims to change the core structure and the philosophy of legal education
doctrine in Uzbekistan which evolved since 1936 post-Pashukanis curriculum period and worked
predominantly in the theory mode. Among several grave concerns mentioned about the curriculumin this chapter, the crucial would touch upon the adaptation of the case study law into legal
curriculum. While studying law based on analyzing concrete and relevant cases proves to be
successful in many countries, yet it is unclear how this method demonstrates itself in Uzbekistan- the country which does not offer rich and helpful legal practice material which would form aground for case-law study. In very exceptional or limited circumstances, a handful of law
instructors, by relying on own rich experience and potential, may be able to re-construct available70

or create new cases, and successfully integrate them into course curriculum. The factual situation
however demonstrates that majority of law instructors in Uzbekistan does not have such experienceand simply cannot conceptualize the mere idea of successful case study doctrine.
Presently, many young people wish to obtain a degree in law by motivating it with theirgoal of working as a prosecutor or judge. On the other hand, the profession of lawyer (advokat) in
Uzbekistan is not popular as it is, for example, in the Western hemisphere, in Japan or in Korea.
In the developed countries, working as a lawyer is popular due to its financial stability, freedom
and independence, and lack of routine associated with public sector jobs. Among many reasons
why young people in Uzbekistan give their priorities to work as a prosecutor or law enforcement
agency officer rather than advokat is a high authority and wide competence of these public
institutions. Employment in the law enforcement sector, which left totally unchanged since theSoviet era, presupposes enabling huge administrative resources, or in other words, simplifies adecision-making process by omitting many burdens in addressing concrete legal issues. Perhaps,
independent, and more creative research-based curriculum might stimulate young people in
Uzbekistan to reconsider in the future their views and approaches towards legal profession.

71

IV. University of World Economy and Diplomacy (UWED) International Law Faculty:
Globalizing with Socialist Characteristics
Introduction to the Chapter
Attached to the Uzbek Foreign Affairs
Ministry (from now on, the MOFA) the Universityof World Economy and Diplomacy (from now on,
the UWED) was created in 1992 in Tashkent with a
primary objective to train a new generation of highly
educated young leaders, who would have a firm
grounding in foreign affairs, including, law,economy and politics.195 In the USSR period, it was
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR basedin Moscow and pertaining an exceptional monopoly Image 4.1: The UWED, Façade.
to deal with all international affairs.196 Similarly, theMoscow State Institute for Foreign Affairs and, the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry ofForeign Affairs of the USSR (also Moscow - based) served as the only official gateway for future
Soviet diplomats to obtain required training and secure their employment in the USSR’s foreign
ministry and its diplomatic missions abroad. 197 Therefore, in the post-Soviet Uzbekistan, todevelop own diplomacy and maintain multilateral ties with foreign and international actors on an
adequate level, the UWED has been primarily assigned the responsibility for preparation of
specialists in the fields of inter-state relations, international economic relations, and international
law.198
Presently, the UWED is one of the most prestigious educational entities in Uzbekistan with
one of the highest admissions score records, numerous educational and research centers, as wellas multiple foreign partners and donors. Another feature of this university is that, due to a relatively
advanced foreign language training and numerous international academic agreements, many of its
students, upon completing their programs, continue their graduate studies abroad. In August 2018,
the government initiated wide-scale reforms of the UWED regarding shortening the length of study,
improving a study process and offering a wider financial competency. Ongoing reforms initiallyaffected admissions numbers and transferred its law department into one with the highest tuition
fee rates in the country. Notwithstanding the long-standing prestige and ongoing reforms in thisuniversity, a closer look at the curriculum, teaching methods, and study materials unveil several
grave concerns which are worthy of discussion and hopefully, improving one day.

Ukaz Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan 474 o Sozdanii Universiteta Mirovoy Ekonomiki i Diplomatii., 1992. It was
the second new university with a law faculty to be created in Uzbekistan after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
(First, was the TSUL - August 1991).
196
Even though there was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Uzbek SSR and other former Soviet Union republics,
they had no competence in foreign politic’s decision making process. Refer further to: Postanovlenie Soveta Ministrov
Uzbekskoy SSR N-253 Ob Utverjdenii Polojeniya o Ministerstve Inostrannyh Del Uzbekskoy SSR, Iyul 23, 1988.
197
Only a handful of natives from Uzbekistan had been professionally trained and further appointed into diplomatic
positions. As an example, the Uzbek Foreign Affairs Minister Kamilov (as of April 2018) is one of the graduates ofthe mentioned Diplomatic Academy of the USSR. “Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan Administration,” https://mfa.uz/en/about/management/. [accessed on April 23, 2018]
198
Initially, it also presupposed preparation of specialists in the field of international journalism., Ukaz Prezidenta
Respubliki Uzbekistan 474 o Sozdanii Universiteta Mirovoy Ekonomiki i Diplomatii.
195

72

Faculties
There are three departments (faculties) in the UWED; (1) International Economics andManagement, (2) International Public and Private Law (from now on, International law), and (3)International Relations and Political Science. In light of recent 2018 reforms of the MOFA system
which also echoed in the UWED, the government initiated a new department - Guiding andInterpreting which, as of now has no well-elaborated state education standard. 199 All departments
contain undergraduate (bachelor’s) and graduate (master’s and doctoral) programs. As the primary
goal of this research is to explore the legal education in Uzbekistan, this chapter will focus
explicitly on the International Law (Jurisprudence) department.200
In the summer of 2018, right before the admissions round, a president issued a particularorder regarding the UWED which touched upon its several organizational matters. Notably,
starting from the 2018-19 academic year, the government decided to decrease a five-year LL. B
program to four years, whereas students who enrolled before such novelty will follow a five-year
curriculum.201 The present chapter will shed light on existing standards and specific innovations
which aim to reform the LL.B program’s profile.
VI.1. Undergraduate level (LL. B in International Law)
VI.1.a. Admissions and selection (requirements and entrance exam, admission numbers andstate-sponsored grant/contract-based study, stipend, classification by language/regions/gender)
Requirements and entrance exam
Admissions fall into the competence of the admissions committee headed by the rector of
the UWED and a responsible secretary. A candidate applying to the International Law Departmentof the UWED is a subject of the same application requirements as in the case of the TSUL. In
particular, an applicant is required to have completed a full 11-year program of secondary
education or graduated from secondary professional or vocational school. As evidence, applicantsmust submit original copies of relevant diplomas to the admissions committee. As a part of theapplication procedures, the applicant is also required to submit a medical certificate on theprescribed form, the passport or certificate of birth (for those who have not reached the age of 16),and application with the indication of direction (International Law, State Educational Standard 5A240105) and language of education.202 As of 2018, the UWED has been implementing only a
Postanovlenie Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan N 3795 o Merah Po Sovershenstvovaniuy Deyatel’nosti
Universiteta Mirovoy Ekonomiki i Diplomatii, 2018.
200
International law faculty was established in 1996. In 2002 the faculty was renamed to the of Faculty ofJurisprudence (International legal activity). In 2018 it became the Faculty of International Public and Private law(International law) Apart from three main departments, the UWED also includes; the Language Training Center, theInstitute of Management, Higher Diplomatic School (with MBA courses), the Center for International Economic andPolitical Studies, the Center for International Legal Research and Comparative Public Law, the Legal Clinic, theCenter for IT and Distance Learning, the Information Resources Center, the Japanese Centre, the Korean Centre, theLaboratory for Negotiations, the Center for Teaching of Conference Interpreters, 18 administrative and scientificdepartments, Academic Lyceum. UWED, International Department. Refer further to, Ibid.
201
Because the four-year curriculum remains unclear to the moment of drafting of present research and given the factthat the five-year curriculum will continue until 2023 and will be largely incorporated into the four-year curriculum,
the present chapter will focus on a five-year LL.B curriculum.
202
Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov N594 (Prilojenie), 2018. Also, Resolution of Cabinet of Ministers of the
Republic of Uzbekistan 118, June 18, 2010.
199

73

full-time version of the LL.B Program in International Law, and there are no options like part-time,
online-interactive or double degree program in the department.
Traditionally, admission exam is highly competitive and contains two separate rounds - (1)the preliminary written exam and (2) tests.203 The first round is a three-hour exam which falls
entirely to the competence of the UWED. It implements three blocks of written assignments to
examine intellectual capacity, native language, and foreign language skills of each candidate.204
Those applicants who can demonstrate certificates of foreign language proficiency from
commonly-recognized institutions automatically obtain a maximum score from language exam.205
A total score for the preliminary exam is - 100, (40, 30, 30 for each block respectively) and inorder to proceed to the second stage (tests) applicant must obtain at least half in each block.
Nest stage is a test exam which falls to the competence of the State Testing Center. Eachcandidate must have passed three blocks (subjects) of entrance tests; Russian or Uzbek (native)
language and literature (depending on the applicant’s preference), history (similarly, in Russian orin Uzbek), and foreign language test (usually, English, but there are also applicants each year who
take French or German and, study it as a first foreign language upon admission). 206 Since 2018,
holders of CEFR B1 level of foreign language exam (conducted regularly by the State Testing
Center) and other official certificates automatically obtain the maximum score without taking tests
on foreign language.
Before 2018, each of the three subjects contained 36 questions, which made it 108 in total
and offered 226,8 points as the maximum score. Since 2018, the number of questions for eachsubject was decreased from 36 to 30 making it 90 in total, whereas the time for entrance exam
remained the same (3 hours). Each correct answer for a single test question gives an applicant acertain point. Thus, one correct answer for the history test question is equal to 3.1, English - 2.1,
while native language and literature - 1.1. Thus, if an applicant correctly answers all 90 questions,the total maximum score will compose - 189. Those few who achieve the highest test scores in theentrance tests are likely to be admitted on the state-grant basis (without tuition fee). Others may
get enrolled in case if they agree to cover the tuition fee (contract-based study).
Similarly, to the TSUL, some applicants may waive the entrance tests the or enjoy special
admissions privileges. For example, winners of domestic Olympiads (inter-disciplinarycompetitions among high schools) or international competitions can automatically enroll upon
submitting the relevant certificates.207 Men who undergo their military service in Uzbekistan andwishing to enroll in higher education entities are also eligible for generous privileges. In particular,
if they obtain a score more than 100, they get extra 50 percent out of achieved score added to their
final results. 208 Such a scheme makes many of them uneasy to compete.
A preliminary written exam was introduced in 2018. Before there were only entrance tests. Postanovlenie
Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan N 3795 o Merah Po Sovershenstvovaniuy Deyatel’nosti Universiteta Mirovoy
Ekonomiki i Diplomatii.
204
Ibid., Several instructors from relevant departments of the UWED independently elaborate questions for this exam.
205
Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov N594 (Prilojenie). IELTS - not less than 5,5, TOEFL IBT - not less than 61, a
minimum of B2 CEFR, GOETHE certificate, or DALF.
206
Preparation of entrance tests as well as notification on results for all domestic higher education entities, fall into
exceptional competence of the State Test Center. Refer further to; Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov Respubliki
Uzbekistan 258 o Sozdanii Gosudarstvennogo Centra Testirovaniya pri Kabinete Ministrov Respubliki Uzbekistan.
14 May 1994.
207
Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov N594 (Prilojenie), also Annex V, 1-6 Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov N226.
10.
208
The citizens (In Uzbekistan, only men undergo a military service) who served in the armed forces of the Republicof Uzbekistan along with the above-stated documents present the originals of their military identification card and the203

74

2018-2019 Admissions exam scores
Top state-sponsored grant score
Russian language course
248.5(Evropotok)
Uzbek language course(Natspotok)

Top contract-based score
192.2
208.8

Table 4.1: Admissions exam scores in the UWED LL.B program are one of the highest in Uzbekistan. Notable,
while the maximum score is 189, some candidates who get an extra score added as part of military benefits, mayreach a score of up to 200, thus leaving behind those who are not eligible for such privileges.

Those few who achieve the highest test scores in the entrance tests are likely to be
admitted on the state-support grant basis (without tuition fee). Others, whose score is lower thanstate grant winners, are enrolled in case if they agree to cover the tuition fee (contract-based study).
Hence, the admissions quotas for the UWED are not distributed among the regions of Uzbekistan(i.e., regional quota) but based merely on the highest entrance tests results.
Admission numbers and state-sponsored grant/contract-based study
The 2018-19 enrolment quota varies
significantly from the previous years. First of all, thenumber of applicants was visibly smaller only 153
people, apparently because new admissions rules of
the UWED’s LL.B program provided official quota
for 45 students only, out of which nine were stategrants and 36 - contract (tuition fee) based seats.
Simultaneously, the UWED divided nine state
grants in the following way; 5 seats for groups with
Uzbek language (Natspotok), and four seats for
Russian (Evropotok). The rest enrolled on acontract-based placement.
Fig 4.1: 2018-19 Admissions quota (state-rants,
contract-based placements).209

2018-19 Admissions Round
120
100
80
60
40
20
0

99
54
22

14

5
In Uzbek language

4

In Russian language

ApplicantsContract (Tuition fee)State-Grant (Non-paid)

recommendation of commanders of military units in the place of service. Refer further to; O‘zbekiston Respublikasi
Qurolli Kuchlari safida muddatli harbiy xizmatni o‘tab bo‘lgan fuqarolarga imtiyozlar tizimini takomillashtirishga
oid chora-tadbirlar to‘g‘risida”gi 2012 yil 31 maydagi PQ-1765-son qaroriga o‘zgartirish kiritish to‘g‘risida”gi
2017 yil 4 apreldagi PQ-2867-sonli Qarori, 2017.
209
Numbers provided by the UWED Admissions Board. Refer further to, http://uwed.uz/en/pages/reminder-toentrants [accessed on September 11, 2018]75

As an example, in the 2017-18 admissions
round, 90 students out of 530 applicants could
enroll in the LL.B program. Out of 90, only five
students with the top scores in the admissions tests
could obtain the state-sponsored grants (three in
Natspotok and two in Evropotok), while the rest 85
enrolled on a paid-contract basis. One student
enrolled on the outside official quota basis, whichmakes the total of 91 students.
Fig 4.2: 2018-19 Admissions quota (state Grants,
contract-based placements).210

2017-18 Admissions Round
500

402

400
300
200

128
51

100

3

34

2

0
In Uzbek language
Applicants

In Russian language
Contract (Tuition fee)State-Grant (Non-paid)

Fig 4.3: Admissions dynamics in 2012-2017.211

The data analysis on the admissions quotes between 2012-2017 evidence that while thenumber of applicants and admissions quota was rising, the government decreased state-sponsored

210
211

State Testing Center, 2017.
State Testing Center, 2012, 2017.
76

quota from 20 in 2012 (33 percent out of 60 students), to only five in 2017 (less than five percent
out of 90 students).212
Furthermore, in 2017 the government has introduced a new system of additional (outsideof the official quota) admissions into higher educational institutions at higher contract rates.213
Therefore, one could suppose that the actual number of the UWED’s LL.B students would
rise significantly in the nearest future, and its proportion of self-support (tuition fee-paying)students would compose a vast majority. However, in light of recent 2018 reforms, the government
decided to limit the quota twice - to 45 students only which is similar to the results of 1994.

Admissions Quota Dynamics 19942018
100
50

90
50

90

60

45

0
1994

2004

2014

2017

2018

Fig 4.4 Official Admissions Quota from 1994 shows a stable increase in annual placements whereas in 2018 there
is a sudden shift down.
Source. Compiled from the STC and UWED Admissions Board.

There are some speculations that government
initiated such steps because of its intention to
implement the former Soviet-system of compulsory
employment for UWED graduates in public
institutions. In particular, the relevant regulation of the
Cabinet of Ministers provides a list of organizations
which highlights the dissemination of UWED’s
graduates among them. 214 Those enrolling on higher
contract rate (outside of formal quota), however,might choose their employment freely.
Fig 4.5: The 2018 admissions demonstrate the state-grantquota has increased for the first time in the last ten years.
Source: UWED, International Department.

2018 Admission(45 students)
Stategrant20%

Contract

Contract
80%

State-grant

Whereas in 1994, only 50 seats were available in the International law Department. Postanovlenie Kabineta
Ministrov Respubliki Uzbekistan O Priyome Studentov V Universitet Mirovoy Ekonomiki i Diplomatii N111, 1994.
213
Starting from 2017 academic year, the government introduced a new system which enabled many applicants withlow scores (68 and more points) to get enrolled into higher education entities on a higher contract amount. In theInternational law department of the UWED, such contract rate is about 246.000.000 Sum, (about 30.000 USD), which
is one of the most expensive contract rates among HEIs in Uzbekistan.
The number of additional quotes is to be determined by the State Commission based on the potential of particularhigher education entity as well as the major of study. Refer further to, Postanovlenie Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan
2955., 5.
214
Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov N594 (Prilojenie).
212

77

Stipend
All students receive a monthly stipend to cover a certain amount of living expenses. Upon
excellent studies, the UWED raises its amount, but not very high. Uzbekistan inherited this systemof providing financial support to students from its Soviet past. Presently, the actual amount ofstipend is far from being enough to cover the tuition fee and accommodation. Nevertheless, eventhis symbolic support helps many students to cover some daily expenses like lunch or/andtransportation. Furthermore, a higher stipend which students can receive upon excellent marks,
stimulates them to perform better during their studies.
With the introduction of the new tuition fee system in the UWED in 2018, some students
may terminate their stipend. In such case, the amount of their tuition fee will decrease, but notsignificantly.
The government, via MOHSSE, offers a minimal number of stipends to students who
demonstrate excellent academic progress starting from their second year of studies. For obtaining
such stipends, a student must correspond to specific criteria, such as publications, high academic
performance, knowledge of language and participation in scientific projects.215
Classification by language/regions/genderFig. 4.6: Language dynamics in the UWED
LL.B Admissions
500
400
300

402

145

128

274

200
100

330

94

99
54

0
2012

2016

2017

Applications in RussianApplications in Uzbek

2018

According to the 2018 admissions
results, out of 45 enrolled students, 27 enrolled
in Natspotok (Uzbek language) and 18 into
Evropotok (Russian language). For example, inthe previous year, out of 530 applicants, 402
applied for Natspotok (52 enrolled), whereas
only 128 for Evropotok (38 could enroll).
Statistical data on applicants and their preferredlanguage education course demonstrates that atendency of decreasing applicants choosing
their education in the Russian language will bedecreasing in the future, while the number ofapplicants wishing to study in the Uzbek
language will be growing.

The existing practice demonstrates that close to the graduation of the LL.B program, someRussian speaking students who hesitated using the Uzbek language before, could master it or, atleast, got used to essential daily communication. Similarly, those students who spoke mainly in
Uzbek could master or understand better Russian. Furthermore, by experiencing the same study
environment and sharing similar challenges during the program, students could overcome thelanguage barrier and benefit regarding making new friends and contacts.216 However, on the otherAnnex III, Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov N226.
It is one of the long-term issues that students enrolled into Evropotok or Natspotok rarely or almost nevercommunicate with each other in many educational entities of Uzbekistan. Among the language barriers, such factors
as school education, social environment, media and entertainment play crucial role in the dichotomy of young peoplein Uzbekistan. Refer further, David Macfadyen and David MacFadyen, Russian Culture in Uzbekistan: One Languagein the Middle of Nowhere (Routledge, 2006); Pauline Jones Luong, The Transformation of Central Asia: States andSocieties from Soviet Rule to Independence (Cornell University Press, 2004).
215
216

78

hand, it posed serious challenges and difficulties when the lecturer introduced legal theories in alanguage that was not a lingua franca for some part of students.
A couple of years ago, the UWED authorities decided to revise and change this long-term
tradition of non-separation LL.B students into specific language courses. So, according to newly
established rules, in the initial first and second academic years, students are separated into two
courses; Russian language groups (Evropotok), and Uzbek (Natspotok).217 From the third to fifth
academic years, the dean’s office dissolves these groups by creating instead new, mixed groups
with a balanced number of students from Russian and Uzbek language backgrounds. Thus,
students are exposed to a multilingual environment from the third year, but not from their first year
as it was initially. Many of the currently enrolled students criticize and complain to their principals
against this new policy, by often referring to their inability or unwillingness to adapt to thelanguage shift and socialize with new groupmates who do not speak well their language.
Between 1992-1998, the government carried out admissions in the UWED by considering
regional requirements for lawyers with an international background. Within the mentioned period,
International Law faculty implemented admissions policy according to a regional quota principle(distribution of seats in proportion between administrative-territorial units). Furthermore, thegovernment still bore in mind the old socialist-oriented educational approach of giving apreference for enrollment of young people with the proletarian background.218 Later this system
was abolished as outdated and based on an unfair competition among applicants. Presently, there
are no geographical limitations (regional quotas) but admissions based on a higher exam score.
Even though the UWED does not impose a regional quota anymore, a statistical data fromall five admission rounds between 2013-17 demonstrates that the highest number of applicants
usually come from Tashkent city, Samarkand, Ferghana, and Kashkadarya, given the fact that these
territories are the most populous in Uzbekistan. Within these four leading regions, Tashkent city
occupies a largest space in terms of admission numbers, thus leaving behind a wide gap with otherregions. Apparently, another reason behind the highest number of admissions might be a relatively
prosperous economic situation in the capital city comparing to the one in the periphery. Normally,
incomes in the capital are higher and therefore, many parents can afford covering high tuition fees
for their kids. (Refer to the figure and description below).

For example, in 2016, the State Commission has elaborated the quota for International law Department in thefollowing way; 36 seats for Russian language groups, and 54 seats for Uzbek. Refer further to; Postanovlenie
Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan 2955;
This data is also available at http://dtm.uz/oldfiles/?mod=average-passing-points-for-2016-2017 [accessed December
11, 2017].
218
Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov Respubliki Uzbekistan O Priyome Studentov V Universitet Mirovoy Ekonomiki
i Diplomatii N111.
217

79

LL.B students' proportion in regional perspective
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0

149

18

23

12

28

23

23

37

24

27
8

33

17

11

2013-2017

Fig 4.7: Number of admitted students to the UWED in academic years between 2013-17 (All five courses) in theregional perspective. (Statistical data includes number of students in admission years 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and2017 from each region (12 regions, the Republic of Karakalpakstan, and capital city Tashkent). The total numberof students at the TSUL as of 2017, 433 students. Out of that the biggest number is from Tashkent city - 149
students, whereas the smallest from Sirdarya region - eight.

There are no sexual restrictions for studying in the UWED. Comparatively to the TSUL,
there are slightly more female students in the International Law Department of the UWED which
may be explained by the mere interest and intention of the female population to work for theinternational sector. However, according toa recent novelty in HEIs admissions
MALE - FEMALE
guidelines, male applicants who undergo amilitary service obtain large benefits during
PROPORTION
entrance exam. 219 For example, out of 433
current LL.B students, 68 could enroll by
Total
Male
Femaleobtaining military admission benefits during
97
94
91
entry exams. As the number of such
90
76
75
applicants annually increases, it is uneasy
72
68
for female applicants to compete male58
candidates and enroll into the TSUL.
42
23

Fig 4.8: Number of admitted LL.B students to the
UWED in academic years between 2013 -17 in
gender perspective. In the 2017-18 admissions
year, the number of females composed slightly
more as compared to previous years.
UWED, International Law Deans Office, 2018.

21

19

18

16

2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
Entrants Entrants Entrants Entrants EntrantsO‘zbekiston Respublikasi Qurolli Kuchlari safida muddatli harbiy xizmatni o‘tab bo‘lgan fuqarolarga imtiyozlar
tizimini takomillashtirishga oid chora-tadbirlar to‘g‘risida”gi 2012 yil 31 maydagi PQ-1765-son qarorigao‘zgartirish kiritish to‘g‘risida”gi 2017 yil 4 apreldagi PQ-2867-sonli Qarori.
219

80Female
23%

Male
77%

Fig 4.9: A number of admitted LL.B students ingender perspective. (Between 2013-17 the total
female population of did not exceed 23 percent out of
total number of entrants.
Source: UWED, International Law Dean’s Office,2018.

IV.1.b. LL. B Curriculum (preparatory process, time division, and academic disciplines,
internship)
In general, HE in Uzbekistan requires undergoing two essential levels: a four-year bachelor
program and a two-year master program.220 Comparing to the TSUL, which implements a fouryear program for bachelors, UWED’s LL.B in International Law program continues implementing
its five-year program. A full switch into a four-year curriculum is expected only by 2023.221 Whilethe law states that the specifics of the UWED require a five-year curriculum, there is no further
clear explanation on this point.222 Many students often criticize a five-year LL.B curriculum in the
UWED by pointing to the fact that it takes only four years to obtain LL.B degree in law in the
TSUL. Moreover, those students who pay their tuition fee often complain that they need to cover
the tuition fee in the fifth academic year which widely involves an internship and there is no regularstudy as such.
Preparatory process
De jure, it is the MOHSSE which implements academic standards of the International Law
Department of the UWED under the code 5240100 (5A240105 International law). This code
(Napravlenie) includes formal qualification requirements for training general international law
specialists. A codified database formally regulates legal academic disciplines, curriculum,semesters, qualification internships, assessment, and quality control.223 Thus, in theory, it is the
MOHSEE that works out international law curriculum, confirms the syllabi, directs the preparationand publication of law textbooks for students, and determines the number of academic positionsin the faculty.224

Exception includes programs in medicine, which takes up to 9 years.
The four-year curriculum covers only those who enrolled after 2018. Hence, the 2017 and earlier entrants willcontinue studying on a five-year term until their graduation in 2023. Postanovlenie Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan
N 3795 o Merah Po Sovershenstvovaniuy Deyatel’nosti Universiteta Mirovoy Ekonomiki i Diplomatii, 5.
222
Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov Respubliki Uzbekistan N 225, 1998.
223
The 2001 State Educational Standards Reegulation. Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov Respubliki Uzbekistan ob
Utverjdenii Gosudarstvennyh Obrazovatel’nyh Standartov Vysshego Obrazovaniya. S izmeneniyami i dopolneniyami,
N23, 2017.
224
Government determines a number of teaching staff based on a number of students. Now a proportion is 1 teacher
to 11 students and this proportion is expected to be reduced smoothly by 2020 year and become 1 teacher to 9 students.
This will let the universities to enhance a quality of teaching. Interview with Assoc Prof. I.A March 2017.
220
221

81

De facto, the MOHSSE has no direct knowledge of the implementation of law curricula,(especially when it comes to international legal disciplines), lacks experience in the preparation oflegal textbooks and has no necessary expertise in law teaching methods. Therefore, it is often thechairs within the faculties (both at the UWED and TSUL) who perform a leading role in organizing
academic curricula within law faculties, prepare textbooks or other study materials, guide theteaching and assessment of students and perform other academic affairs. Hence, while the
MOHSSE has an exceptional monopoly in implementing educational standards, its role issomewhat of a formal character when it comes to the actual organization of the study process inlaw faculties.225
Time division and academic disciplines
In order to complete their bachelor’s degree, students have to undergo a five-year course,
composed of non-elective legal, para-legal and non-legal disciplines, commence several
internships, take exams and submit a final qualification paper (graduation thesis). Each academic
year is divided into two semesters, making it ten semesters in total. Every semester is composedof about 20 teaching weeks.226 The UWED students carry a burden of 28 to 32 hours of mandatory
theoretical lectures and seminars per week. The curriculum does not offer elective subjects.227
Much of the first year which starts in September and finishes in June is devoted to studying
some social and humanitarian subjects; history of Uzbekistan, philosophy, logic, culture, economy,
and, the history and theory of law and state228. By pausing on such subjects like the theory of stateand law (Teoriya gosudarstva i prava), one may notice that the study process designers reliedheavily on a Soviet curriculum which emphasized on a state-centrism approach in law.
Furthermore, labeled as mandatory under the MOHSSE requirements, first-year students also
study a block of ‘politically-oriented subjects,’ religion and spirituality, basic principles of national
ideology, the theory of democratic society construction in Uzbekistan. Mandatory training also
includes non-legal disciplines like physical training, Uzbek/Russian language, first foreign
language (usually English), and courses on advanced math and IT. At the end of each semester,
students have two weeks (sessiya) during which they need to have their earned grades recorded inindividual rating books. If a student earns minimum grades for every discipline, then he officiallycompletes the course and may transfer to the next. In July and August, first-year students leave forholidays.
In the second year, students mandatorily study the same non-legal social and humanitarian
disciplines. Only a handful of legal and para-legal disciplines added, such as constitutional law,
constitutional law of foreign countries, world economic geography and ecology, and a short course

Based on several interviews with faculty staff N. and D. it was revealed that UWED usually utilizes the TSUL
elaborated study programs in several of its chairs. These programs are further confirmed the MOHSSE. An interview
with M. and B. has revealed that publication of textbooks is often in the competence of special commissions
226
Exception is the fifth course in which students have a relatively small academic burden and mainly commence
internship and write their graduation thesis.
227
LL. B in International Law program provides no classification into specialties (legal majors) as it is the case in the
TSUL (starting from its second year).
228
Also, the history and theory of state and law of foreign countries (former history and theory of state and law ofbourgeois countries). Scholars point that legal education in the CIS countries inherited the so-called state-centrism
approach which is evidenced by necessarily including theory of state and law into law curriculums. Christopher P. M.
Waters, Counsel in The Caucasus: Professionalization And Law In Georgia (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2004), 78.
225

82

on legal-political theories.229 One particular feature of the UWED is that starting from the second
year, students study a second foreign language; English (for those who do not study it as a first
language) French, German, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Arabic. 230 In thesecond year, the first and second foreign languages occupy a substantial part of the study
curriculum. After finishing the second course in July, students must undergo a foreign language
internship in public or non-public institutions. Several years ago, UWED practiced dispatchingsome students to the overseas diplomatic or consular missions of Uzbekistan as interns in case if
they covered all expenses independently. However, since 2005 this practice has been terminated,and students take a language internship domestically. This internship is a mandatory part of thecurriculum and, therefore, after completing it, students must submit official internship reports tothe faculty.
The legal curriculum in the third year of studies includes courses on sociology, pedagogy,
prosecutor’s supervision, the world economy, criminalistics, law enforcement agencies, 231 andforeign languages. Only in the second semester of the third year, students start studying
fundamental legal disciplines, such as; civil law, criminal law and criminal procedural law,administrative law and administrative-procedure law, and tax law. Starting from the third grade,
students also take the international humanitarian law, international public law, international private
law, human rights, international intellectual property law, as well as some additional courses on
the theory of international relations, and international negotiations. At the end of the third year,
students must undergo a one-month professional legal internship with a law firm or other external
public or non-public organization to gain practical experience.
In the fourth year, students continue studying international public and private law and,additionally, concentrate on; corporate law, family law, Islamic law, civil procedural law, labor
law, and business law. Furthermore, there are two additional non-legal disciplines; accounting andaudit, as well as scientific methods. There is also a one-month professional internship at the endof the fourth year. Among most common public organizations, students chose the Ministry ofForeign Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Trade, Central Bank, and other public or private
institutions.232
In the final fifth year, students study only one semester, while another is spent for aninternship, final exams, writing a graduation thesis and holding a public oral defense. During thefirst semester, students have to cover; corporate law, EU law, banking law, international transportlaw, international private law, international trade law, diplomatic and consular law, international
protocol and etiquette, strategic data analysis. From mid-February to mid-April, students undergo
the so-called qualification internship. This internship is particularly crucial because many students
write their graduation thesis trying to tie it to their practice placements. For example, it is easierfor students undergoing their internship in the legal department of the Oil and Gas Company to get

Political-legal studies (Politiko-pravovie shkoli) is the only political science discipline in the curriculum.
The UWED incorporates a foreign languages department based in the separate building within the campus. Some
instructors are foreign volunteers of international organizations or visiting researchers. For example, JICA, KOICA
and some German academic agencies often dispatch volunteers to Uzbekistan who commence teaching languages inmany local universities.
231
These disciplines are widely believed to be left from the former Soviet legal educational system when a primarytask of the law HEIs included training future prosecutors and security police officials. Refer for details to Doklad
Vyshinskogo, Osnovnie Zadachi Nauki Sovetskogo Sotsialisticheskogo Prava; S.S Alekseev, Vvedenie v
Yuridicheskuyu Special’nost’ (Moskva: Yuridicheskaya literatura, 1976).
232
Refer for details to next section on Internship.
229
230

83

relevant research data if their graduation thesis is about land concession or production sharing
agreements.
Furthermore, some students view their qualification internship placements as a potential
employment place. Upon completing an internship and submitting relevant reports to the faculty,
students take final state exams on the history of Uzbekistan (written) and main foreign language(writing, speaking). The final stage is the submission of graduation thesis and its oral defense.
Internship
While core subjects are intended to give the law students a basic grounding of practicalskills required by a beginning lawyer, another form of training - internship (often-referred in
Uzbekistan as praktika) is intended to enable students to become practically familiar with the legal
profession. In total, 19 weeks are given to the LL.B students to visit a particular public or nonpublic legal institution or department as an intern. Out of these 19 weeks, usually five weeks are
given over for a ‘language internship’233 (at the end of the second year) and 14 weeks for the‘professional internship’ (end of the sixth semester of the fourth year) and the pre-diploma,‘qualification internship’ (end of the fifth year).234 Given the specifics of the UWED, the MOFA
and MFT accept the most significant number of students. The rest of the students undergo theirinternships in the legal departments of other public (MOJ, Courts, Banks) or private institutions(legal, consulting or insurance firms, enterprises, private companies). Tiny amount chooses law
enforcement agencies.235 While some students remain highly disappointed with the assigned tasks
during the internship, others recommend themselves as capable and very prompt persons, and upon
their graduation may get a job offer by the prospective employer.236 At the end of the internshipperiod, a student has to submit to faculty a formal report about the practical activities undertakenin the respective organization. Such reports are only valid upon confirmation by an appointed
supervisor from the organization. Moreover, as all internships are part of the curriculum, students
take, although formal, internship exam. If a student fails to undertake internship activities
adequately, UWED may impose disciplinary sanctions up to the withdrawal from the university.237

Also referred as to “Language internship”
Postanovlenie Ministerstva Yustitsii Respubliki Uzbekistan, Verkhovnogo Suda Respubliki Uzbekistan, Vysshego
Hozyaystvennogo Suda Respubliki Uzbekistan, General’noy Prokuraturi Respubliki Uzbekistan, Ministerstva
Finansov Respubliki Uzbekistan, Ministerstva Vysshego i Srednego Spetsial’nogo Obrazovaniya Respubliki
Uzbekistan N 2548 Polojenie o Poryadke Prohojdeniya Studentami Yuridicheskih Obrazovatel’nyh Uchrejdeniy(krome Voyennyh, Spetsial’nyh Vysshih Obrazovatel’nyh Uchrejdeniy) Oznakomite’noy i Kvalifikatsionnoy Praktiki,a takje Stajirovki. December 31, 2013.
235
Usually prosecutor’s office or customs committee.
236
Some students remain highly frustrated by regular administrative tasks, such as technical and burdensome
paperwork, ex; organization of files on the shelves and separation of documents, archival work, transferring documents
between departments. Some are often asked to regularly make tea and coffee for their superiors and supervisors. There
are similar trends in many other former USSR states, for Example in Ukraine or in Georgia. Refer further to, D. Wes
Rist, The Export of Legal Education: Its Promise and Impact in Transition Countries (Routledge, 2016) 44.
237
Postanovlenie Ministerstva Yustitsii Respubliki Uzbekistan, Verkhovnogo Suda Respubliki Uzbekistan,
General’noy Prokuraturi Respubliki Uzbekistan, Ministerstva Finansov Respubliki Uzbekistan, Ministerstva
Vysshego i Srednego Spetsial’nogo Obrazovaniya Respubliki Uzbekistan N 2548-1 O vnesenii Izmeneniy i
Dopolneniya v Polojenie o Poryadke Prohojdeniya Studentami Yuridicheskih Obrazovatel’nyh Uchrejdeniy (krome
Voyennyh, Spetsial’nyh Vysshih Obrazovatel’nyh Uchrejdeniy) Oznakomite’noy i Kvalifikatsionnoy Praktiki, a takje
Stajirovki. November 22, 2017., 22.
233
234

84

IV.1.c. Teaching methods
Since its establishment in 1992 and up to the present days, the International Law faculty
mainly adheres to the Soviet-style passive learning format of teaching with a primary focus on
memorizing the black letter law and rarely, critics as passed down by the instructor. Technics oflegal training aimed at utilizing critical thinking skills and abilities to understand and apply thelaw in a meaningful way remains widely unknown to many lecturers. A traditional, top-down
method of teaching black letter law in the form of ex cathedra lecture does not stipulate any
collaborative discussion. Students, in their majority, play the role of rather passive recipients ofknowledge presented by lecturer/instructor. In most of the cases, students are expected to takenotes of such lectures (konspekt) which is supposed to perform a role of handwritten support
material of a particular discipline.238 Given the speed and clarity of lecturer’s reading skills, it isusually a handful of students who write down what was said, while the majority of students
disregard such passive learning considering it purposeless as they never refer to these notes.239
The core principles and technics of the Socratic method or the Dalton plan of instruction,
widely used in Japanese, Korean and Western laws schools, are still unknown to lecturers in
Uzbekistan. Only a handful of young faculty members who studied abroad sometimes introduce
interactive methods such as class discussions and debates, as well as note the importance ofreferring to comparative legal materials. While they do so, the older generation of professors who
were trained predominantly in the Soviet system often opposes such novelties.
The legal education system in the UWED relies heavily on lectures during which
instructors present to students a broad picture of the subject, referring mainly to codes, statutes,
and regulations mixed up with a minimal theoretical explanation. Hence, in the circumstances ofpassive learning, students often do not have a chance to go deep into the conceptual details andthus broaden their knowledge horizons. Occasionally, given the multiple teaching language
problems (instructors teach the law in Russian and Uzbek) or conceptual misunderstanding, somestudents try to engage more actively by interrupting a lecturer for clarification or raising additionalquestions. While some lecturers who realize the necessity of adding clarity respond to students’questions, others cut any attempts to interrupt the lecture and hence, discourage further discussion.
Hence, the general content of teaching law is very abstract and theoretical as it focuses
mainly on the domestic and some elementary principles of international law. For example, acomparative law component briefly incorporated to specific disciplines (constitutional law offoreign states)240 focuses mainly on the conceptual distinctions between the common law and civil
law, without going into details how countries which belong to different legal systems address andresolve the same legal issue. It is rare that students upon their graduation gain adequate
understanding and skills in comparative legal methods, just because it is not a part of thecurriculum and, additionally, because they never use specific literature, including international
cases written mostly in foreign languages.

Some lecturers sometimes do not prepare for class and the format of the lecture resembles more to the dictation ofbook, article or code section. In other words, lecturer just simply reads the paper and students take notes. Such ‘lectures’sometimes last for 90 minutes and the time spent without a particular benefit heavily exhausts students.
239
When evaluating students at the end of the course, all lecturers check whether students have these notes, without
accentuating on the quality and clarity of the handwriting as such. In these conditions, many students who were nottaking (konspekts), automatically copy the notes taken by other students at the end of the semester.
240
A former, ‘Bourgeois Legal Systems’. Refer to, Law, Studies by Soviet Scholars (Social Sciences Today Editorial
Board, USSR Academy of Sciences, 1985), 141; Butler, “Soviet International Legal Education.”
238

85

Only some mature instructors with the Western type of legal education or rich scientificbackground can merge the theory and practice as well as refer to the foreign laws or cases in theirclasses. As an example, presently, a handful of such scholars by utilizing their vibrant scientificand practical background, successfully incorporate doctrinal, comparative law and case study
methods in their classes on administrative law. In particular, notwithstanding a lack of real legal
cases from the national court practices, these scholars by relying additionally on their experience
gained from active research and involvement into administrative law reform in Uzbekistan, createdan adequate syllabus for their students which contains essential components on theory and practice.
Their high level of pedagogical preparation is another essential component in legal education
which reflects in well-structured and well-organized classes. Such a case is an exception or
extremely rare in the UWED. In many other disciplines, lecturers do not have enoughprofessionalism, for example, to compose a case or correctly pick up any case from a foreign
jurisdiction and demonstrate its applicability in Uzbek law. Those who refer to cases of othercountries’ experience tend to limit their focus to the brief overview of the case background withoutpausing much on facts, application of the law, merits and judgment details.241
The primary concern of the present curriculum is its failure to integrate theoreticaldoctrinal aspects with educational-practical implications. Lack of practical training andunawareness of students about the professional legal ethics is another serious challenge in the
UWED. Several years ago, the government decided to introduce some exceptions to the static
teaching method by attracting more legal practitioners into the study process. The government
considers that a greater emphasis put on the practical training of law students will ensure, if notentirely, then at least to a certain degree, their being equipped to fulfill tasks assigned by theprospective employer. 242 Indeed, one may observe that the contents of courses offered bypractitioners are more interactive as compared to the traditional lectures, however, in many cases,
such courses gradually transform into regular ‘sharing of an interesting personal experience’ orsimply, question-answer sessions which do not tie the actual practice to the theoretical background.
Sometimes, when practitioners shared their remarkable experience in dealing with resonance cases,
and many students seemed to like it, such ‘active learning sessions,’ in fact, did not go further thanmaking merely a temporary, deep impression. Furthermore, being often far from an excellent legal
scholar, many practitioners lack another vital component which is essential to the study process,namely, being an excellent legal educator. It is a well-established fact that even if a high-classpractitioner who is entirely familiar with the doctrinal aspects of the law lacks essential
pedagogical skills, he will not succeed in transferring own knowledge to a younger generation oflawyers.
The law curriculum also stipulates a significant amount of time for the independent study
used for revising the material and obtain some additional knowledge on each discipline. The
UWED students do not have separate individual study laboratories, but there is a big reading hallwhere students can do their assignments after classes until evening.243 In practice, however, theself-study through reading and regular assignments is often replaced by revising the notes that
lecturer dictates during the lectures. The textbook problem, including lack of translated

Even such disciplines as EU law and Human Rights law which are primarily based on referring to the case law
from international courts and tribunals (UN Human Rights Committee, European Court of Justice, European Court of
Human Rights), are limited to studying international conventions and statutes only.
242
See also the sec on Clinical Legal Education in the UWED243
It however cannot accommodate all UWED students.
241

86international or comparative material as well as the absence of external sources, such as legal
research databases, legal academic tools result in limited data which is necessary for self-education.
IV.1.d. Assessment (oral assessment, tests, term exams)
Lectures are followed by seminars in the form of tutorials with a group of 15-20 students
and one instructor. 244 During the seminars, students are usually questioned (often one by one,sometimes in the group) about the material studied during the course (lectures). In these seminars,
students are expected to rely heavily on the taken notes ‘konspekts’, or offer a solution to asituational case by referring to the provision of codes or statutes. Those students who could
memorize the largest amount of information as reflected in codes and statutes and have a wellrecorded note of the lecture, receive the highest grade. In some cases, lecturers are not eveninterested whether students understand well theoretical or practical implications, but rather focus
on their memorizing abilities and automatic application of written statutory provisions. At the endof each seminar, the instructor evaluates every student’s activity by granting points which will
eventually compose one part of academic assessment out of the total grade.245 Apart from seminars,
curriculum allocates a certain amount of points for lecture attendance. Hence, those students who
skip some part of the lectures, risk losing these points and end up receiving a low total grade for aparticular discipline.246
Once, students complete studying specific legal subject through lectures and seminars (forexample, constitutional law), their apprehended knowledge is assessed through examination in theform of computer-based tests.247 In general, lecturers warn that such tests cover the discipline itself
and do not go beyond the instruction material presented during the lecture. However, in practice,such tests often include questions which were not covered during the lecture, or sometimes evennot related to the subject area. Tests usually include between 30-40 questions on theory andstudents have about one hour to provide their replies. After the student responds to all questions,the result immediately appears on the screen. Lecturer further adds this result to the lecture andseminar participation scores. Those who do not appear on the test day have a chance ofresubmission upon obtaining approval from the dean.
Finally, in the last days of the semester, students take term exams which form anotheressential component of assessment. This type of assessment involves written exams. A supervisor,
in collaboration with other instructors, draft assessment questions for written exams out of thelecture program of studied discipline. The questions are purely theoretical and do not speculate
any practical-situational cases.248 Instructors distribute questions in the auditory right before theexam starts. Therefore, students do not have time to do some preparations in advance. As long as
the format is a closed-book exam, students are not allowed to use books, codes or notes taken
Also addressed as an ongoing assessment, this method is based on supervisor’s evaluation of student’s overall
progress which includes an ability to comment and analyze study material, participation in group discussions, andstate of notes taken during the lecture.
245
The so-called seminar’s oral activity assessment.
246
According to the rules, a student who skipped 30 academic hours without justified reason might be expelled fromthe university after following necessary procedures.
247This is also a closed book examination. Students are not given access to codes or laws during such tests.
Depending on HEI, some modules are partly assessed during seminar discussions.
248
There is exception for the Civil Law Chair because its professors are closely engaged into the work of legal clinic
where they constantly implement interactive methods of education and exams. Refer to the later part on clinical legal
education.
244

87during the lecture, but can only rely heavily on their memory. The written exam usually takes
between one hour to 80 minutes, during which students must comprehensively write on the theory.
Sometimes, when the format of the subject does not presuppose strict written exam rules or student
wishes to obtain a higher grade, there is sometimes an option of drafting small research-work(referat) of 10-15 pages on the thematically relevant topic.249 Usually, after submission, professors
and students hold mini-sessions where each student, within a limited amount of time presents own
paper and answers to questions from professor or students.
After a student gets a minimum score and completes the subject, he can move on to thenext grade (course). In this regard, in the next stage, chances of revisiting studied disciplines andevaluating the level of students’ progress or knowledge are limited. Hence, the teacher-led learning
process, which is still prevalent in Uzbekistan rather than student-centered naturally may result in
students graduating without sufficient experience for self-relying.
IV.1.e. Graduation requirements/exam(s) for obtaining a degree.
In order to complete the program and obtain an LL.B in International Law degree, students
need to study all subjects mandatorily for five years and undergo a multi-assessment mode: which
includes oral, written examinations and, computer-based tests. As a part of the curriculum
requirements, students also have to undertake the practice-based internships with legal
departments of state or non-state organizations to gain practical experience. In their final year,
students are required to pass final state exams on the history of Uzbekistan and English language
and, write a graduation thesis of about 50 pages on their major topic and hold a public oral defense
before the special commission.
The final exam on the history of Uzbekistan is a written, closed book session. This exam’s
questions are prepared by the relevant chairs on the individual slips of paper and include various
historical topics starting from the ancient time up to the modern history. Teachers who are in
charge of exam provide no questions to students beforehand, thus limiting their capability for
preparation and making them to rely on their memory. When the student appears on the designatedday and time for an examination, he draws the questions by a lot and after, may sit for two or threehours and write the answer. This matter is often a subject of critics by both students and some
professors who assert that sitting on a long history exam after five years of studying law is not alogically correct requirement for law graduates. In addition to that, the process of screening andevaluating submitted history essays remains highly unclear. The English exam combines both
written and oral assessment. After writing a short essay, which is not necessarily on a legal topic,
each student goes through a short interview with a non-native, local English instructor who often
has no skills in teaching English for lawyers.
The graduation thesis is an independently researched paper which aims to introduce
undergraduates to the primary, elementary principles of legal research methods and to encouragethem to develop more deeply into their chosen law specialty. 250 Those students with a highcommand of English may submit their essays and hold a defense in English. Others must submit
in Uzbek or Russian. Many students try to tie up their graduation thesis to their internship
There are also separate seven course works (written short thesis) in total in the curriculum that all students must
write: the theory of state and law; constitutional law of Uzbekistan, constitutional law of foreign states, civil law,human rights law, international public law, international private law.
250
Regulation is worked out by TSUL and right now under consideration by UWED and Karakalpak University(Faculty of history and law), Interview with the Deputy-rector of the TSUL., Mr. Kamalov.
249

88experience with a view of collecting more of a first-hand data and highlight the practicalimportance of research work. On the other side, unfamiliar with searching strategies, correct usageof a reliable scholarly data, legal writing and research methods, many students face tremendous
difficulties in their research which eventually results in low-quality academic papers.251 Anothercritical problem is a low level of antiplagiarism culture among many LL. B students.
For successful submission of a graduation thesis, a student is required to obtain two
recommendation letters, internal (written by academic staff) and external (provided by an expertof the practitioner in the relevant field). A board of professors usually referred to as Graduation
Commission sits on the oral defense and briefly question each student after he has presented his
topic. Usually, each defense takes around 20-25 minutes and afterward commission issues results.
It is rare that student fails a graduation thesis’s oral defense, however, if such case takes place, a
student is eligible to apply for the revision or re-examination with the commission itself or rectorof the UWED. After the successful oral defense, graduates obtain a degree of LL. B in
Jurisprudence (International law).252
IV.1.f. Career placement (legal/para-legal/non-legal)
When successful students complete the undergraduate program, they chose between two
options, attend the graduate program and continue legal education or enter the employment.253 In
the last case, it is more of a labor market product, rather than a long-term learning process.
LL.B graduates of the UWED are regarded as trained jurists and, thus, entitled to theemployment in their specialization. However, such legal education de facto is not professional
legal training, but rather comprehensive-general education focused on theoretical issues. 254
Graduates who received education by state grants, need to seek and carry out employment within
the public or private sector at least for three years to obtain their diplomas.255 Such a scheme raises
many reasonable concerns regarding the government’s eligibility to keep grantees’ diplomas given
the fact they have graduated the program and obtained a relevant degree. Contract-based students,
who covered their tuition fees do not have such an obligation. Currently, the state does not
distribute or assign UWED’s LL.B graduates with employment as it was during the socialist era.
As of now, graduates who hunt for a job independently.256
Many students refer to other informal methods, for instance, copying or following the style of previously submitted
graduation papers. Interviews with Mr. A, Mr S, Ms. B., UWED, March 2017.
252
The way it is written in the diploma; Yurisprdentsiya (Xalqaro huquq). (Eng) Jurisprudence (International Law)
253
Only students with master’s degree in law have the right to teach law at universities.
254
LL.B. program in Uzbekistan, as in many other civil law jurisdictions of the former USSR is different fromprofessional legal training and can be compared to the ‘well-rounded education’ because, as in case of the UWED,
apart from legal disciplines, students spend a plenty amount of time for studying course on philosophy, politics,
sociology, culture, math, economics, language and other general courses.
255
This regulation is enforced since 2005. As state-grand based students do not pay tuition fees, it is generally
considered that they have spent public money on their education. Therefore, government issues graduation diplomas
to this category only after they have worked for the public or private entity in Uzbekistan for three years. Before
however, it was required to work for the public sector only. Such ambiguous contract raises concerns regarding thelegal nature (refusing the fact that graduate complete the program and obtained a degree) and eligibility of the UWED
to uphold the diploma unless the graduate fulfils his responsibilities and works for a certain amount of time in
Uzbekistan.
256
Even though initial, the 1992 Regulation, presupposed annual distribution of graduates among various departmentsof the MOFA and MFT, such policy is rather formal because students do not receive any official job offer upon theirgraduation. Art 15, Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov Respubliki Uzbekistan o Merakh po Organizatsii Deyatel’nosti
Universiteta Mirovoy Ekonomiki i Diplomatii N 491, 1992. Refer also; Ukaz Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan 474 o25189

Most of the graduates wish to secure employment in the MOFA, MFT, MOJ and otherministries or public institutions. Because of the relatively insufficient number of vacancies, just a
handful of graduates and only after long probationary term eventually get employment in named
organizations officially. Some graduates, find a job as clerks or junior jurists in the constitutionaland other courts, prosecutor’s office, customs office, public or private companies (Uzbekistan
Airlines, oil and gas industry-affiliated companies, auto industry company). Those with excellent
foreign language skills and extensive volunteer experience find a job with relatively higher salaries
in foreign or international organizations. Sometimes students find employment in organizations
where they undergo qualification or diploma internships. Such organizations include insurance,
consulting the companies or legal departments in business enterprises. In mentioned entities, themajority of graduates primarily aim at obtaining legal positions, however, given a shortage of
vacant places, a particular minority often fulfills para-legal functions.
Some graduates aim to work as practicing lawyers and present their clients in courts.
However, recently, access to the profession of a lawyer cannot be secured immediately upon
graduation. Even though until 2008, anyone in Uzbekistan with a law degree could apply for alicense and act as a lawyer257, things changed after the government comprehensively revised theLaw on the Bar (including its provisions about requirements to legal profession access) in
December 2008. Current provisions set up a mandatory bar association and require fromcandidates a law degree, two years of professional experience in any legal profession (that should
also include a 6-month of apprenticeship with a law firm or other law office) and successfully pass
the bar examination.258 Only upon successful passing of the bar exam, registering with the MOJ
and obtaining a license, one can act as a lawyer and present their clients in the court.
There are also graduates who work in non-legal positions. Even though this category is
minimal, it may be classified into two main groups. The first group is composed of people who
occupy leading managerial posts in public or private sectors. Their job while being managerial
may sometimes involve legal issues. The second group is composed of those who upon graduationor later decided to work in the field of private business. It is rare in Uzbekistan that law graduates
occupy non-legal positions in public sector.
VI.2. Graduate level (LL.M)
Many LL.B in International Law degree holders who wish to continue to the graduate level
usually prefer to apply to foreign universities in Europe or Asia. Some, however, may pursue theirgraduate studies at the UWED if they pass entry exams successfully. Presently, UWED’s
International Law department offers three master programs - LL.M in International Public Law,
LL.M. in International Business Law259, and LL.M. in Diplomatic and Consular Law.260 Since 2018,
UWED implements a one-year LL.M program for conventional, on-campus students,261 and twoSozdanii Universiteta Mirovoy Ekonomiki i Diplomatii. On the other hand, Presidential decree N 3795, 2018,
presupposes a distribution system, whereas its realization and administrative background is not clear yet.
257
No apprenticeship with legal firm was required.
258
Art 3(1) Law of Uzbekistan on the Bar (December 1996, amended in December 2008, hereinafter the Bar) Uzbek
or Russian language versions can be found online at http://www.lex.uz/ru/docs/58372 [accessed on June 6, 2018]259
A new direction introduced in 2018 and so far has no well-established curriculum. Refer further tohttp://www.uwed.uz/en/pages/masters-degree [accessed on September 10, 2018]260
LL.M in the UWED has no features like online-interactive or double degree program.
261
Because one-year master program is a new feature at the UWED there is no clear data on its implementation at thetime of this research.
90

year LL.M for working professionals. 262 The annual Presidential regulation based onrecommendations from the MOFA, MOE, and MOHSSE defines that a total quota for this LL.M
programs must not exceed a half from LL.B admissions quota.
IV.2.a. Admissions and selection (requirements and entrance exam, admissions numbers andstate-sponsored grant/contract-based study, classification by language/regions/sex)
Requirements and entrance exam
Every year the Rector of the UWED establishes the admissions board which is competentfor the admissions process into LL.M. Applicants who wish to enroll into LL. M programs are
required to submit a formal letter to the name of the rector, a diploma certifying graduation frombachelor’s (LL.B) program, academic publications or equivalent research papers and a medical
certificate on the prescribed form. Applicants also must provide passport and, if available, military
documents. Application submission is carried annually between July 1 to July 30.263
Admission to the master’s course is based on a highly competitive three-stage exam which
is held annually between 3-15 of August.264 The shape and organization of entrance exam fall tothe competence of the rector of the UWED and the MOHSSE. Based on the school orundergraduate language education, applicants may choose between taking the exam in Russian or
Uzbek. Those who studied in Karakalpak language are eligible to take the exam in Karakalpak.
The initial exam is conducted in the form of test on international legal disciplines andevaluates the level of applicants’ knowledge in their chosen LL.M programs (legal majors). 265 If
responses to all questions are correct, an applicant may obtain up to 100 points. As a part of theexam, candidates are also required to demonstrate high skills in a foreign language. An applicant
can obtain up to 100 points for a test of a foreign language if he answers all questions correctly,
however, if there is a valid TOEFL (IBT 85) or IELTS (6.5) or locally taken domestic foreign
language test score, he receives these 50 points automatically, without necessary submission of
language test.266 Finally, upon presenting official LL.B transcripts, examining authorities count the
total rating score of the applicant’s undergraduate academic progress. In Uzbek HEIs total ratingscore varies between 55-100.267 Thus, the applicant may collect up to 300 points in total in all
mentioned components of the entrance examination.268

Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov N594 (Prilojenie), 49.
O’zbekiston Respublikasining Vazirlar Mahkamasining Qarori, Oliy Ta’lim Muassasalarga O’qishga Qabul Qilish,
N 393, 2017. Appendix II, 3. Even though this regulation does not specify about the nature of the bachelor’s degree,
it is a well-established custom that only law program graduates are eligible to apply for LL.M programs of UWED.
264
Before 2018, it was a multi-stage exam and included additionally an interview where interviewer evaluated every
applicant’s interest in and passion for scientific research and pedagogics. Given the quality of answers, an interviewer
could grant up to 50 points to a candidate. Applicants also took tests on IT (Computer Science) where the highest
possible point was 50. Separately, there was a test exam on the discipline called ‘Democratic society construction’ which gave a chance of obtaining up to 50 points.
265
International Business law, and Diplomatic-Consular law.
266
In case of submission of a certificate of foreign language (a minimum of B2 CEFR, GOETHE certificate, or DALF)
Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov N 610.
267
O’zbekiston Respublikasining Vazirlar Mahkamasining Qarori, Oliy Ta’lim Muassasalarga O’qishga Qabul Qilish,
N 393, 2017. Appendix II, 4, sec 14-16. Refer also to the Rating system in the Introduction.
268
Refer further to; Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov N594 (Prilojenie).
262
263

91

Direct
application

Legal Mjor
exam

Foreignlanguageexam

Raiting scoreverificationStatecommission
order

Enrollment
proceduresFig 4.10: Admissions process to the UWED LL.M, 2018 Admissions guidelines.

Admission numbers and state-sponsored grant/contract-based study
A very few successful candidates who achieve the highest score in the entrance tests canenroll on the state-sponsored grant basis (without tuition fee). Others, whose score is lower canenroll in case if they cover the tuition fee (contract-based study). Some LL.B graduates who havereceived honors from president-affiliated youth programs can also obtain state-grant seats without
admission exams.269
In the academic year 2018-19, LL.M
programs offered placements for 15 students out of
which, three places, one in each of the threeprograms offered state-sponsored grants. Before
2018, the total quota did not increase by ten students.
For example, based on official statistics, in theacademic year 2016-17, only nine students in total
could enroll in two existing LL.M programs.270

Fig 4.11: Government opened only 15 placements in the tree ofthe LL.M programs at the UWED in 2018 admissions round. 271

Notably, out of nine, only two seats in the LL.M in Diplomatic and Consular Law program
offered state-grants.272 Hence, due to the introduction of a new direction in 2018, namely, LL.M in
International Business Law, the number of LL.M entrants has slightly increased to five students.
It is, however, a small number, for example, comparatively to the Law and Business LL.M
program of the TSUL, which in 2018 admissions offered a total admissions quota of 45 seats. In
general, UWED’s LL.M admissions quota is ten times smaller than TSUL’s, apparently because
the government cannot guarantee more extensive domestic employment opportunities for LL.M
holders with the international-legal background. Upon admission, master students also receive amonthly stipend to cover a certain amount of living expenses, which may increase if the student
demonstrates excellent academic progress

O’zbekiston Respublikasining Vazirlar Mahkamasining Qarori, Oliy Ta’lim Muassasalarga O’qishga Qabul Qilish,
N 393, 2017. Sec 3-7.
270
Of these, five students were admitted to the LL.M in International Public Law and four into LL.M in Diplomaticand Consular Law.
271
Postanovlenie Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan N 3795 o Merah Po Sovershenstvovaniuy Deyatel’nosti
Universiteta Mirovoy Ekonomiki i Diplomatii.
272
One for Russian group and one for Uzbek
269

92

Classification by language/regions/gender
Each LL.M program offers placement in Russian language groups (Evropotok), and Uzbek(Natspotok).273 As shown above (table), the quota in 2016 was strictly limited, (for example, outof five students in the LL.M in International Public Law program, three candidates enrolled in
Uzbek language course and two in Russian; and out of four students in LL.M in Diplomatic andConsular Law Program two students opted for Uzbek, and two for Russian language groups.
Table 4.2: The quota for 2016-2017 admissions round for the UWED’s LL.M Programs in Uzbek and Russian
language groups with the number of applicants enrolled into state-grant (state budget) and contract-based study.
Source (UWED, Admissions Committee)

Lectures are often conducted in one of the languages Russian or Uzbek, depending on theprofessor’s preferred way. One may observe that there is no strict separation into language groups
as all students participate in the same lectures and seminars.
A recent 2017 Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers also presupposes admission quotes
for regions requiring specialists with a master’s degree. However, given the specifics of the masterprograms in the UWED, such quota does not impact on the UWED’s LL.M programs as long aspresently, specialists with the international-legal background may rarely use their knowledge andskills in regions other than Tashkent city.274 Apart from domestic students, the 2017 Resolution
The State Commission elaborates the quota for International law department. Refer further to; Postanovlenie
Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan 2955;
This data is also available at http://dtm.uz/oldfiles/?mod=average-passing-points-for-2016-2017 [accessed December
11, 2017].
274
O’zbekiston Respublikasining Vazirlar Mahkamasining Qarori, Oliy Ta’lim Muassasalarga O’qishga Qabul Qilish,
N 393, 2017. Sec 7. Scholars of the state grants initiated by the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan and winnersof state competions whose specialty is relevant to the proposed master’s program can be enrolled without exam andbased on the extra state-grants.
273

93also stipulates admission of foreign citizens into master programs. 275 There are no gender
restrictions while admission into master programs at the UWED.
III.2.b. LL. M Curriculum (preparatory process, time division and academic disciplines,
internship)
Preparatory process
De jure, it is the MOHSSE which implements academic standards for its LL.M Programs
at the UWED under the codes; 5A240105 - International Public Law, 5A240106 - Diplomatic andConsular Law, and 5A240111 - International Business Law. These codes include formal
qualification requirements for training specialists (LL.M) in the relevant fields. Codified databasesformally regulate academic disciplines, curriculums, semesters, qualification internships, andassessment control.276 The rest of the curriculum features copy the same pattern as of UWED’s LL.
B Program. A new 2018 administrative regulation vests the UWED with the right to certain extent
elaborate educational standards, however, this provision remains yet obscure as to it does not
specify the limits of competency while collaborating with the MOHSSE.277
Time division and academic disciplines
In order to obtain a master’s degree, students have to undergo the two-year course,
composed of legal and non-legal (mainly pedagogy-related and state-ideological) disciplines,
commence an internship in the last semester, take state exams, submit a master’s dissertation anddefend it publicly. Each academic year is divided into two semesters, making it four semesters intotal. Every semester is composed of about 17 teaching weeks. 278 Master students carry a burdenof 36 hours of lectures, seminars and scientific-research work per week which is mandatory for all.
The curriculum de jure speculates three elective subjects. De facto all students are asked to takethem mandatorily.279
In general, the curriculums of LL.M programs look very similar regarding the disciplines
taught, separation of hours for research and dissertation writing, and internship period. Much of
the first year which starts in September and finishes in June is devoted to studying the so-called
275

Foreign students should provide the following documents to apply for a master’s degree: Application addressed to
the rector of the higher educational institution (indicating the citizenship and chosen specialty); Original passport(copy will be provided to the Admissions Committee); A copy of the document of the residence permit in Uzbekistan;
Original diploma and its applications, as well as their notarized translation into Uzbek or Russian languages: 6 photos(color) 3,5 х 4,5; Medical certificate form U-086. The list of foreign students who submitted their documents to themaster’s degree is subject to expert examination in an appropriate order. Admission of foreign students is determinedbased on the results of the examination and the relevant decree of the State Commission. Foreign students are admitted
only based on the contract and payment is made in the equivalent of foreign currency. Refer further tohttp://uwed.uz/en/pages/masters-degree276
The 2001 State Educational Standards Reegulation. Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov Respubliki Uzbekistan ob
Utverjdenii Gosudarstvennyh Obrazovatel’nyh Standartov Vysshego Obrazovaniya. S izmeneniyami i dopolneniyami,
N23, 2017.
277
Postanovlenie Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan N 3795 o Merah Po Sovershenstvovaniuy Deyatel’nosti
Universiteta Mirovoy Ekonomiki i Diplomatii. 7.
278
Each week is composed of 20 academic hours of lectures and tutorials.
279
These elective disciplines include; Teaching methodic of specialized disciplines for both LL.M Programs.
Separately, Consular service of the Republic of Uzbekistan and Diplomatic protocol and Etiquette is offered at LL.M
in Diplomatic and Consular Law Program, while the LL.M in International Public Law Program offers on the elective
basis; National security and strategic planning and, EU law.
94

common-methodological disciplines. These mandatory disciplines include national ideology,
research methods, pedagogy, foreign-practical language (usually English), IT (computer science),
oratory, and contemporary developments in state and law. Such disciplines as research methods
and pedagogical training aim to provide the knowledge necessary for conducting graduate-levelresearch and additionally, the skills required for teaching law.
Within the first three semesters, LL.M students must study 15 mandatory disciplines andcommence their primary research, whereas the fourth semester includes mainly internship anddrafting dissertation. The principal difference between LL.M programs is visible in particular
academic disciplines taught separately during the first and second years. The rest of the, non-major,
methodological disciplines are the same for all LL.M students.
5A240105 - International law

5A240106 - Diplomatic /Consular law

Topical issues of international law

Topical issues of international law

Law of Treaties

Law of Treaties

International security law

Diplomatic law

Rules of international organizations

Consular law

International human rights law

Economic diplomacy and security

Table 3.4: Profile academic disciplines taught in two LL.M programs. Italicized legal disciplines specify theprincipal difference between two LL.M curriculums. Source: UWED, LL.M Department.

Based on this table, one may notice that master students in both programs share the same
number of academic hours for studying topical issues in international law and the law of treaties.
There are only three profile disciplines which vary depending on the major of the LL.M program
whereas the rest remain similar. Such a framework, theoretically, incorporates academic andpractical components which reflects in LL.M programs’ dualist nature.
As 2018 reforms suggest shortening the duration of the LL.M program for on-campus
UWED students for just one year, given a visible trend of increasing a practical component in thelegal education sector in Uzbekistan, one might easily predict that it is gravitating towards apractice-based course. The Uzbek government initiated this rapid shift of reforming masterprograms in the UWED in its peculiar expeditious manner, right before the new academic year
2018-19, hence, by placing a heavy burden on the UWED and MOHSSE to reshape academic
curriculum according to aims of the practice-oriented graduate studies. With no relevant
experience and understanding of short-term master courses’ nature, Uzbekistan will likely refer tothe similar model-programs existing in some European or Asian states as Korea or Japan.280 If so,
one of the most ambiguous moment is how and to what extent the theoretical education pillar
survives in the proposed one-year curriculum. Furthermore, it is unclear whether in the future oneyear curriculum there will be adequate space for drafting a research thesis. Given the speed of thecurrent reforms and the pressure from the above, it is evident that in the first several years the
UWED will have to deal with staff in a very unprepared manner. Such conditions will eventually
pave the way for failures and attempts to re-draft LL.M curriculums.

Indeed, there is no precedent that would demonstrate any of the HEI in Uzbekistan implemented such short-term
master courses in law before.
280

95

Internship
Even though UWED considered its master programs as academic-oriented, the curriculum
always stipulated mandatory internships for that master students. Students must undertake theirlegal internship in close cooperation with practitioners of certain legal institutions or departments
within ministries which have direct knowledge on their research topic. Such an approach, similarly
presupposes both, practical and academic training for young lawyers. Furthermore, internshipplacements in the LL.M programs play a dominant role regarding gathering thesis data anddiscussing a practical side of the research. Given their majors, students usually commence theirinternships in relevant departments within the MOFA, MOT, and MOJ.
VI.2.c. Teaching methods and assessment
Much of the teaching and assessment is identical to that of the LL.B course. Masterprograms implement the same way of top-down lecturing students of a black letter law and theories
and evaluating their knowledge obtained during the lectures using seminars and mid-term oral andwritten exams. There is no visible prioritization of active learning or using Socratic methods. Even
when some scholars try to teach law interactively by initiating group discussions or implementing
brainstorm technics, they often omit the focus on theoretical and practical parts of law by merely
engaging into an opinion-based exchange with students. In order to fil in the wide practical gap,
the government stimulates increasing the amount of professional training from people working for
public agencies and dealing directly with the application of law into practice. Hiring such parttime practitioners proves successful only in very sporadic cases when legal specialists have a richdoctrinal background which they can tie to certain practical cases and present it to young people
in a non-complicated manner. In other words, it is just not enough to be a good scholar andpractitioner; it is also vitally important to be a good educator who can smoothly transmit
sophisticated knowledge to students. Unless the UWED places these three requirements as aprecondition for teaching, neither active learning methods nor practice-based tutorials or higher
wages will pose any visible improvement to the teaching process.
Another grave critical aspects in the UWED master programs is the absence of academic
writing for lawyers, legal research methods and computer-assisted legal research. In particular,
UWED does not implement a well-elaborated approach in its LL.M programs regarding covering
every step of the research and writing process that would help to formulate the right questions,read critically and build solid research arguments. Many dissertations point to the lack of skills inelaborating well-established research arguments, present hypothetical claims, substantial factual
evidence, as well as utilize editorial styles and peer-reviewed referencing material.
Furthermore, the curriculum evidence that LL.M students do not have an adequate classthat would guide them a chance to learn more about IT-based bibliographical data search and peerreviewed data. It is the reason why many students widely and non-deliberately refer to non-peer
reviewed sources and often cite them while arguing their positions on legal issues. The curriculum
also does not pause on the importance of the research ethics, logic for lawyers, and plagiarism
issues, which often causes unproperly cited or long, non-paraphrased texts in the master theses.
The absence of relevant faculty staff teaching about editorial styles which would help to bringconsistency to many students’ writings is another severe problem.
Academic progress is a subject of a multi-assessment mode: which includes oral, written
examinations and, computer-based tests. In general, LL.M students, similarly to LL.B students
96participate in seminars, take exams and obtain relevant grades, which upon the end of the semester
form a total score. There is no accreditation-based assessment, and if a student fails to obtain arequired score for the subject, there is a risk of being dismissed from the program.
Starting from the end of the 1980s, legal science in Uzbekistan gradually disconnectedfrom legal practice and legal pedagogy. In other words, while the legal science has been remaining
predominantly of the Soviet-style, the legal practice moved towards the free-market relations anddisconnected with the law taught at HEIs. In such circumstances, the authority of legal science
rapidly dropped, given the fact that in the independence period, there was not even a single
professor or group of domestic scholars who created and defended any outstanding legal doctrine.
As it is visible in the case of LL.M programs at UWED, the gap between doctrinal settings,
practical realities, and personal pedagogical skills has been deepening, and absence of at least oneof these components in the study process affects teaching methods. It is extremely rare that ateacher can implement all mentioned three components, i.e., draw an accurate picture of modern
legal theory’s reflection in legal practice and deliver it to students in a meaningful, pedagogicallyprofessional way.
IV.2.d. Graduation requirements/exam(s) for obtaining a degree.
To obtain a master’s degree, students need to attend all mandatory disciplines and obtain
the required grades. As a part of curriculum requirements, students also must undertake a practicebased internship during their last semester with legal departments of public or non-publicorganizations to gain practical experience and gather necessary research data for own master’stheses. As a final precondition, students must pass state exams (attestation) on profile disciplines
and, write an LL.M thesis on the critical topic.
The Final State Attestation Commission confers a degree of LL.M upon successful public
oral defense and comprehensive evaluation of study progress of each student. This commission istechnically a UWED body, but the UWED’s rector must form it only upon reaching a consensus
with relevant ministries (MOFA, MFT, MOHSSE). According to the regulation, this commission
must maintain a reasonable balance between scholars and practitioners from the International Law
Department of the UWED and other relevant entities.281
The attestation includes three main components. The first component is an exam on specificdiscipline which may include a specific subject studied during the course (usually non-legal orpara-legal). Second is an exam on specialty discipline which, given the directions of LL.M
programs, may vary between international public or international private law. The commission
determines the format of exams (written or oral) and notifies students about all details in
advance.282
The last step is a master’s thesis examination and oral defense. The thesis is anindependently written research paper which requires students to demonstrate their awareness oftheoretical and practical aspects in their chosen fields. Therefore, graduation guidelines requirethat theoretical aspects of the master’s thesis be applied or tested in practice. This moment,
however, remains vogue and time-consuming as there are often no clear guidelines on how to
implement thesis outcomes into practice. As in the case of the LL.M in the TSUL, there is a similar
grave concerns and critique about such a requirement.283 Eventually, unrealistic requirements andOliy va U’rta Mahsus Ta’lim Vazirining Buyrug’i 1963, 2009. I, 10-15,
Ibid. I, 16-30,
283
Refer to the section on LL.M , graduation requirements in the TSUL.
281
282

97

inadequate research training result in poor quality because many students lack clarity and are
unable to create a thesis with a concrete research question(s), solid arguments and rich academic
discussion around the topic.
Those students with a high command of English may submit and defend their theses inEnglish. However, there is neither extensive, peer-reviewed and updated English literature accessnor professional English proofreader with a legal background. Therefore, the process of submittinga thesis in English is far from a preferred one. In general, students draft their graduation papers in
Uzbek or Russian, depending on a language course. The absence of reliable and updated primaryand secondary academic sources is often the reason why students cannot demonstrate in-depth
knowledge and produce creative ideas in the relevant legal field. Therefore, many students try totie up their graduation thesis to their internship experience with a view of collecting more of thefirst-hand data and highlight the practical importance of their research work.
Scholars and practitioners who form the commission and preside in the oral defense, limit
their exam to brief questioning sessions. Usually, each defense takes around 20-25 minutes andafterward commission issues results. It is rare that a student fails the oral defense, however, if suchcase takes place, a student is eligible to apply the commission itself or rector of the UWED for therevision or re-examination. After the successful oral defense, graduates obtain a degree of LL.M.
IV.2.e. Career placement (legal/para-legal/non-legal)
Apart from legal professions that many LL.B graduates involve into, students with master’s
degree have the right to teach in HEIs in Uzbekistan. So, some graduates of the UWED’s LL.M
programs may be offered a faculty position for teaching law in one of the academic chairs of theuniversity on a full or part-time basis. Others seek employment as law professionals in public or
non-public sectors and, often, their possession of a master’s degree in law is highly evaluated by
the prospective employer. Furthermore, a master’s degree may contribute regarding promotion for
those working for the government and even result in extra payments to their salaries. Hence, many
graduates seek employment in the MOFA as qualified specialists of diplomatic or consular affairs,
or as legal professionals in the MFT, MOJ, courts and legal departments of other public
institutions.284
IV.3. Law chairs, centers and faculty staff profile
Within each course, headed by a dean, the vital structural units are the chairs of law createdfor particular branches of legal and non-legal subjects. In the Soviet period, it was usually aprofessor who headed the chair. Presently, universities care less about the title of professor andpay more attention to a person’s organizational skills and readiness to devote much time to thechair’s academic and non-academic problems. Senior and junior teachers of a similar
specialization group around the head of the chair.

Some may also work for international, inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations, the judiciary andlaw enforcement agencies, banking or financial institutions engaged into foreign trade or investment.
284

98

By 2018, there are three chairs at the UWED.285 Each chair has its office within the UWED
where its members conduct relevant teaching and other affairs. 286 The most recent chair - isInternational Law and Human Rights which is a product of the merger of two chairs initiated in2007.287 This chair specializes in teaching international public law related disciplines as well as
Muslim law and EU law in the LL.B and LL.M levels.288 There is only a handful of full-time
international law instructors working in this chair who are familiar with the general principles ofinternational law, but unaware of international legal practices. The work of this chair also oftendraws critiques from students because even those several existing specialists have no requiredcompetence in languages other than Uzbek. Weak lingual skills eventually result in an inability topresent and discuss the international case-study law.
The chair of State Construction and Law was established in 1995 with a primary task toorganize teaching the theory of state and law (successor of the former Soviet state-centrism).289
This chair organizes teaching of disciplines in various branches on domestic law, including somepara-legal courses such as the history of state and law, and political-legal doctrines.290 Perhaps
another bright remnant from the Soviet-style curriculum may account for the presence of criminal
law, criminalistics, forensics, and prosecution in the list of the disciplines offered by this chair.
Perhaps it demonstrates a throw-back to the era when the primary goal of legal education focusedon training specialists working for prosecution or security police.291 Perhaps out of the few positive
images of this chair, the one which makes it different from the TSUL is its vibrant administrative
law section which involves a couple of outstanding legal scholars with a rich practical andpedagogical experience.292
International Private and Civil Law chair is one of the leading chairs offering courses inlegal principles of the world market and business law. Between 1995 - 2015 this chair was referredas Civil Law chair and focused on teaching domestic and, partly, international property relations.
Currently, it offers several disciplines in private law.293 One of the positive features of this chair is
its dominant role in the organization and maintaining the activities of the Legal Clinic of the
UWED.

http://uwed.uz/en/faculties/international-law [accessed on June, 2018]
International Law and Human Rights of UNESCO; State Construction and Law chair; International Private and Civil
Law chair. [accessed on June 14, 2018]
286
Sometimes, students who major in the same law area work in the chair on a non-paid, volunteer base.
287
Department of International Law and Comparative Legislation, established in 1995 and the UNESCO Chair
Human Rights, Peace, Democracy, Tolerance and International Understanding, in accordance with the agreement
between UNESCO and UWED, signed on November 6, 1998 under the UNITWIN program inter-university
cooperation of the UNESCO organization. Cited from; http://www.uwed.uz/en/departments/international-law-andhuman-rights-UNESCO [accessed on June 14, 2018]288
Even though the list of taught disciplines mentions about the comparative law, students report that such discipline
was never offered in the course curriculum. Only administrative law lecturer implements acomparative law approaches
in the Evropotok.
289
The previous name of the chair until 1995 was Market Relation’s Legal Basis.
290
For example, constitutional law, administrative law, as well as the theory of state and law of foreign countries, andconstitutional law of foreign countries.
291
Alekseev, Vvedenie v Yuridicheskuyu Special’nost’; Doklad Vyshinskogo, Osnovnie Zadachi Nauki Sovetskogo
Sotsialisticheskogo Prava.
292
To date there is no adequate administrative law training in the TSUL. While there is only a handful of administrative
law scholars in Uzbekistan, they are mainly based in the UWED. A current instructor who must teach administrative
law in the TSUL is a specialist of constitutional law. September 2018.
293
http://www.uwed.uz/en/departments/international-private-and-civil-law [accessed on June 14, 2018]
285

99

The head of each the chair, in close cooperation with the dean, appoints a particular legal
discipline’s supervisor. This supervisor bears the responsibility for teaching, assessment and study
materials.294 Supervisors usually rely on the MOHSEE recommended materials. There are somerare cases when some educators may ignore such practice and use different material in lecturesand seminars.295 Depending on teachers rank and authority, the UWED may ignore such facts.
In 2014, International Law faculty established the Research Center of State Building andPublic Law (Public Law Center) with the view to developing public law expertise among excellent
students within the faculty. The UNDP has initially provided technical and some financial aid in
the organization of this center. Until 2018, this center mainly engaged in legal education including
offering a scientific mentorship and guidance to a limited number of students on generalphilosophical and specific legal issues. Such training aimed at developing analytical and criticalthinking skills in selected talented students. A responsible staff of the center acted as a supervisor
and met with students for a two-hour discussion session every week. Apart from using Russian,members held some topic discussions in English or even French. 296 In 2018, the government
renamed this center into Center for International-Legal Research and Comparative Public Law. A
relevant presidential regulation widened the objectives of this center by assigning the functions offundamental-applied research in the fields of international public and private law, systematic
analysis of domestic legal policy, and application of research results into study process. In addition
to that, the government allocated certain budgetary funds for the center and tied it directly to the
MOFA.297
There is also a department (not chair) of English language which includes one head andseveral instructors, predominantly linguists without a legal background. As long as the UWED
pays relatively better attention to its language training, such departments exist in all faculties andcount from four to five English instructors. Usually, the English department divides students into
several groups based on their level of English proficiency and designates a particular instructor.298

Supervisor’s role in terms of providing materials however often superficial. Often students must rely on themselves
and search literature independently. This is, however, very complicated task because of the library and resources
problems as discussed above.
295
Postanovlenie Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan 1990, O Merah po Dal’neyshemu Sovershenstvovaniuy Sistemy
Podgotovki Yuridicheskih Kadrov. June 28, 2013.
296
Interview with Mr.Igor’ Tsai, Activities of the Public Law Center in the International Law faculty of the UWED.
(Tashkent, September 2017), Tashkent.
297
Postanovlenie Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan N 3795 o Merah Po Sovershenstvovaniuy Deyatel’nosti
Universiteta Mirovoy Ekonomiki i Diplomatii. 8,9;298
Students are split into A, B, C, groups, where A includes students with a high level of proficiency and C thosestudents whose English skills are relatively weak.
294

100

Scientific Council

Rector

Deputy-rector(Academic affairs)

Deputy-rector(Youth affairs)

Scientific/
methodical unit

Spirituality andEnlightment
CenterInternship,careerdevelopment
monitoring unit

Dormitories

IT Center

IT Resources
Center (IRC)

Deputy-rector(Scientificaffairs/Innovations)

Deputy-rector(International
affairs)

Scientificresearch andpreparation of
pedagogical
staff
Center forInternational
Legal ResearchandComparativePublic Law

Deputy-rector(Financial affairs)

International
Cooperation
unit

Financial
Economic unit

Press Secretary

Secretariat

Center forInternational
Economic andPolitical
Research

Scientific
Secretary;
Guide andInterpreters' unit;
Quality control;
HR;
Higher Diplomatic
School;Liceums andspecialised
schools;

Sport facilities

Project
Management,
Innovations andMarketing unit

Legal Clinic

Publishing unit

Faculties(Deans Offices)

International
Law

International law and
Human Rights(UNESCO) chair

International
Relations

State Construction
and Law chair

International
Economics

International Privateand Civil Law chair

Masters
Department

English language
Departments

Figure 4.12: Post-2017 Organizational -administrative structure of the UWED. 299

Faculty staff profile
The Soviet style of academic posts and rankings has left nearly unchanged in the UWED.
While entering the legal academic profession as a junior, one takes a position of assistant lecturer
and then grows to senior lecturer. Later, usually close to 40, one may become an associate
professor and finally, after 10 or more years - a professor. The positions of associate professor andPostanovlenie Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan 2932 O merakh Po Korennomu Sovershenstvovaniyu Sistemi i
Povisheniyu Effektivnosti Podgotovki Kadrov v Tashkentskom Gosudarstvennom Yuridicheskom Universitete. April
28, 2017.
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the professor can only be obtained by experienced lecturers who wrote their doctoral dissertations
and obtained relevant degrees.300
Presently there is only a couple of professors in the faculty of International Law, and theymostly remain as a conservative senior, honorary faculty members dedicated to the traditional
forms of the top-down lecturing and minimum interaction with students. Even though it ispresupposed to have at least one professor for each chair, by 2017, only one full-time professor
was working in the chair of Government Construction and Law, while others remained on a parttime basis. Usually, part-time professors or associate professors occupy another high-ranking
position outside the UWED and rarely lecture in the faculty by asking junior members to replacethem.
In general, a heavy burden of teaching usually lays on the shoulders of full or part-time
associate professors and lecturers most of whom studied law domestically and thus, similarly
adhering to the traditional format of teaching black letter law. Most of the lecturers are graduatesof the UWED or the TSUL. Some senior members studied in the former law faculty of the TSU(TashGU). As mentioned above, the UWED increasingly attracts practitioners from aside to teachon a part-time basis in order to make the study process less static. However, practitioners’ courses
rarely prove to be dynamic and interactive, mainly because such practitioners lack essential
experience in teaching and do not have enough time for preparing to the lectures or at least searcha study material for their students.
A minimal number of faculty members who studied abroad try to introduce methods ofinteractive study in the faculty. While they are committed to incorporate their experience gained
abroad into the academic process, they virtually come into conflict with seniors who oppose theWestern teaching methods. Nearly all faculty members with foreign degrees simultaneously teachin different universities or take second jobs (usually in well-paid foreign NGOs). Such negative
tendency eventually results in brain-drain from law faculties.
IV.4. Quality control
In 2017, the Cabinet of Ministers prescribed every HEI to establish departments which
would undertake as their primary task to control education quality. Such department in the UWED
appeared in the same year and now includes three positions tasked with monitoring and advisory
functions. The primary objective of this department is to assess the quality of academic process at
the UWED, including in the International Law faculty. While department mentions in its regulation
about the development of a specific mechanism to improve the education, the real picture with thewhole academic process remain almost untouched, what, in turn, raises questions about thecompetency of such department and the transparency of its work.301

In Uzbekistan it is usually; Candidate of Legal Science (C.L.C) which has been recently abolished and gradually
being replaced with Ph.D, and Doctor of Legal Science (Dc.S). Refer to the chapter of Doctoral level legal education.
301
The main purpose of the department is to develop and implement a mechanism to improve the quality of education,
coordinate and conduct work on improving the university's national and international rankings, improve the quality ofeducation at the university and its structures. http://www.uwed.uz/en/divisions/view/quality-control-of-education[accessed on June 14, 2018]
300

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IV.5. Library and resources
In the Soviet period, the predecessor of the UWED
maintained a relatively good central library. 302 During theindependence period, however, an underfunding has caused
a deterioration of central and interdisciplinary libraries andother study resources. The central library of the UWED
continues to exist nowadays but has made few recent
acquisitions and remains
stocked with the Soviet-era
or other outdated social
science and law books. For
Image 4.2: International public law
example, in the mid-2000 books often include outdated Russian
the central library had only based studies published several
aroundfiveadequate decades ago. For example, as it isRussian published books on seen in the image, out of six, tointernational law, while the certain extent adequate books oninternational public law, there is only
course which relied heavily one authored in Uzbek.
on this book counted around
50 LL.B students. 303 Until recently students had to rely on an
outdated request procedure, but after 2010, the library purchased
Image 4.3: International private
an automatic search engine which only partly ameliorated thelaw books, similarly toprocess of requesting books. As going into the book storage andinternational public law,
include several outdated studies
browsing the shelves is not permitted, all students must know
authored in Russian language.
what exactly they need.
Most faculty staff do not rely on central library
resources. Similarly, many students stop relying on it after
they realize they cannot find helpful research data. Some
departments or chairs rarely establish own, very modest
legal discipline-oriented libraries composed of only
several small shelves in the faculty office or the chairs.
These small libraries often include books on common law
in English contributed by foreign donors. Given thecontents (students rarely understand the common law
features because there is no adequate training on thecomparative law) and complex legal text in English,
students, and professors barely use such libraries. Image 4.4: UWED Central Library.
are often stocked with
Sometimes, lecturers keep relatively valuable donated Bookshelves
irrelevant, fiction books.
books in their offices for years, thus restricting students’and other faculty members access to study resources.
A recent visit to the library has demonstrated that UWED obtained new books on various
legal disciplines published domestically and authored in Uzbek and sometimes in Russian. These
newly produced publications were initiated to fill an existing gap of limited resources in the local
Formerly, Institute of Politics and Management (UzSSR)
Many reading and written assignments were based on Igor’ Lukashuk, Mejdunarodnoe Pravo, vol. 3 (Walters
Cluwer, 2005).
302
303

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language. However, given the contents and the bibliographical data at the end of these books, one
may notice that authors were relying exceptionally on legal statutes and a limited number of similar
domestic or Russian studies.
Another critical aspect which is partly
affected by the underfunding issue is limited accessto legal research databases. Even though university
runs the so-called resource center, its database islimited to the scanned materials of some outdated
Russian-based studies and, sometimes, old English
articles. Several years ago, NATO sponsored a Image 4.5: Premises of the NATO Depositarydepositary library in the UWED, but its research data Library in the UWED. 2018.
as well as equipment remain inaccessible formajority of students. Indeed, no professor or faculty member in the UWED would provide ITassisted legal research. Critical aspects naturally touch upon legal literature in foreign languages,
primarily in English. Given the high market prices of new legal publications, and restricted budgetof the central library, recent studies remain largely unavailable. Furthermore, the International Law
department has no access to any of the English based legal research databases; like JSTOR,
HeinOnline or EBSCO.
IV.6. International cooperation
Among all domestic HEIs,
the UWED has probably thehighest number of agreements forresearch cooperation and faculty
staff/student exchanges
withacademic institutions and research
entities
acrosstheglobe,
particularly in Europe and Asia. In
Image 4.6: Korean Cultural Center in the UWED.
general, international cooperationis separated into three pillars. The
first pillar includes academic cooperation with foreign HEIs. To date, it has agreements andmemoranda with around 30 foreign universities. For example, in 2016, 30 students from UWED
were enrolled into foreign partner universities mainly in Japan, UK, and other EU countries within
the frames of academic exchange. The UWED has recently established partner ties with the
National University of La Plata (Argentina) and Kookmin University (South Korea). Another new
memorandum was signed in 2017 with the University of Leicester (UK). In particular, the newly
signed memorandum presupposes the creation of Leicester Higher School of International
Research under the UWED with an objective to carry joint research on thematically close
directions. In 2018, the UWED also initiated more extensive cooperation with the RussianFederation, namely MGIMO.304
Given the general picture of academic agreements and their actual practice, one may noticethat within the last ten years, the UWED is gravitating towards more active cooperation with Asianpartners, especially Japan and South Korea. Such tendency might be a consequence of a foreign
policy aimed at maintaining stronger ties with Asian nations, particularly Japan, South Korea, and304(Moskovskiy Gosudarstvenniy Institut Mejdunarodnykh Otnosheniy) - Moscow State Institute for Foreign Relations
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China from one side, and distancing tendency between 2005-16 from Western nations on the otherhand. It should be noted, however, that many graduates also apply to foreign universities in manyother parts of the world, like US, Canada, Italy, France, and Germany to which the UWED has
fewer or no academic cooperation agreements.
Next pillar covers cooperation with embassies, foreign diplomatic missions, andinternational organizations operating in Uzbekistan. Such cooperation mainly includes intercultural and partly, academic affairs. As the UWED is a profile university to train and produce
foreign affairs specialists, many prestigious foreign visitors, including heads of states, outstanding
diplomats and politicians are often invited to speak in front of students and professors. High guests
even sometimes engage in debates or participate in conferences or roundtables on international
issues organized by this university.
The last pillar is related to the cooperation with foreign research organizations which often
act as donors in international scientific or academic projects. Initially, there were strong ties withsome US affiliated NGOs as; the Freedom House, USAID, ABA CEELI, as well as the Soros
Foundation. However, given the harsh anti-governmental rhetoric in the mid-2000, the UWED has
shifted its cooperation trajectory towards mainly German (DAAD, Erasmus) and Japanese (JDS,
JICA) organizations. Later it joined KOICA, Jean Monnet, CASS, SASS, MASHAV, ITEC, GIZ,
and other development-related projects. In the recent ten years, the UNDP has also contributed tonumerous educational projects, including in the UWED. All these projects focus around theorganization of training and short-term courses for the teachers in their subject areas, developing
materials, and organizing master classes.
Sub-Conclusion to the Chapter
The general nature of the 2018 reforms in the UWED, at the first sight, seem to cover longterm issues which the government widely ignored in the last two decades. By referring to thegeneral text of the new regulations, it is evident that policymakers confess the existence of criticalaspects in the field of educating future diplomats and international lawyers. Hence the reform
positively signals that a new government realizes about shortcomings in the education process andintends to improve it radically. Simultaneously, policymakers try to deal with the study process inan astonishingly speedy and unprepared manner, leaving no adequate space for the UWED topromote own interests and accommodate newly proposed reforms. One may notice that the
government has granted the UWED a relative independence, for example in terms of its budgetary
policy, on the other hand, there is still vast influence from the MOHSSE and other public agencies
on the study process which eventually poses limitations on academic freedom.
The quota regulation at the International Law Department of the UWED recently
demonstrates somewhat unstable and unpredictable dynamics. While from 50 placements in 1994
in raised to more than 90 in 2016, the official quota dropped down to 45 again in 2018, thus
returning to a result dated almost to 15 years ago. Apparently, the government controls admissions
numbers within official quota in hope to secure employment for graduates with international legal
background in public agencies, or merely speaking, implement a system of compulsory public
employment analogical to one which existed in the Soviet era. The government also considers thefact that if there are too many international lawyers, some part of them will not be able to find arelevant employment in Uzbekistan and simply, remain unemployed or leave to another country.
On the other hand, the education policymakers in fact, disregard the actual condition of Uzbek
legal education’s gravitation towards monopolized sector since 2013. Therefore, in the105

circumstances when there is only a couple of state-owned HEIs which grant a law diploma, placing
a very modest quota or limiting an existing one only intensifies such monopolization process.
The UWED doubled its tuition fee right before the 2018 academic year, reasoning it by theimportance to have a substantial budget for addressing the needs of students and their study
process.305 Such step, first of all, raises a justified concern regarding to its fairness towards students
who usually expect that the amount of tuition fee will be annually raising to several percent only,
but not double or triple at once. Furthermore, there is another justified question, namely, whether
the UWED can successfully allocate these financial assets so as to attract new or educate further
existing law instructors who would be able to deliver creative classes in a multilingual way andwith all essential components of legal education (Solid doctrinal background, practice which canbe accustomed into theory, and high pedagogical skills to transfer sophisticated topics in an
adequate way). If current academic isolation which prevents scholars to bring in a fresh insight
into their lectures and seminars, continues further, the reform will merely turn into further
commercialization of legal education, to which many talented applicants from middle-classfamilies have already lost their equal access.
Current research traces several links between law curriculum of the UWED and the Soviet
law curriculum focused on the state-centrism. This is not to criticize the Soviet legal education.
Indeed, the Soviet approach towards educating young lawyers between 1960-80s demonstrated
success in terms of tying up doctrinal and practical legal settings and maintaining a high authorityof legal science. What is claimed in the present section, is rather absence of modern approaches
towards legal education in Uzbekistan which would include new doctrines and theories evolving
hand to hand with legal practice. In other words, there is an increasing gap between the old, Sovietstyle legal science which presently occupies academic law curriculum and free-market oriented
legal practice, which has no common ground with the first. It eventually affects the quality andprofessionalism of international lawyers in Uzbekistan.

305

http://www.uwed.uz/uz/news/fulltext/661 [accessed on September 13, 2018]106

V. Clinical Legal Education in Uzbekistan and its Characteristics
Introduction to the Chapter
The fundamental objectives of clinic include to educate in law students the idea of a public
service obligation and to provide free and impartial legal counseling to the socially vulnerable,
marginalized individuals and communities. While pilot projects in 2000 drew a strong interest in
developing CLE in Uzbekistan, it revealed that many law lecturers had yet to develop from thestart their knowledge to effectively engage in clinical methods and interactive training. Given suchneeds, international clinical experts from donor-institutions made several short-term visits to
Uzbekistan to strengthen local CLE program. Their workshops, roundtables and trainings
organized provided Uzbek CLE pioneers with a deeper understanding of international clinical andpedagogical practices.
Before 2000, awareness of CLE in Uzbekistan existed only among very small number oflecturers with a foreign legal educational background. Except particular aspects which are moreadvanced in certain counties and less in others, the present CLE’s development in Uzbekistan isin general very similar to trends occurring in some countries of the South-East Asia.306 There are
two main aspects which raise specific concerns regarding the future of clinical education in
Uzbekistan.
When international experts proposed to promote CLE in Uzbekistan in 2000, theysuggested the idea of including CLE as a compulsory discipline in the law curriculums of local
HEIs offering legal training. Given a highly centralized scheme of HE in Uzbekistan, suchproposals however, could not find agreement within the MOJ and the MOHSSE and thus, were
not accepted into the curriculum of neither the UWED’s International Law faculty nor the TSUL.
Therefore, as of 2018, domestic HEIs implement CLE as a separate program outside of law
curriculum, and based merely on students’ voluntary intention to participate.
Unlike common law countries, in a civil law country such as Uzbekistan, a professional
legal education starts at the undergraduate level, and hence CLE is incorporated as an
extracurricular, voluntary course in the LL.B program. Notably, only students of third and fourth
grades of the LL.B programs are eligible to apply for volunteering in the legal clinics because oneof the main preconditions of local CLE is a knowledge of a basic legal theory, mainly civil law
system. Application process is simple and usually includes a short interview between an instructor
and applicant which seeks to specify a candidate’s wish to engage into clinic’s work and a
proposed level of dedication. There are some incidents when younger students, for example,
graduates of second year wish to participate in legal clinic’s work, however such participation isoften troublesome given the junior course students’ limited knowledge of law and its application.
Indeed, current experience demonstrates that even students from upper courses often have weakor no knowledge in such vital fields as housing law, family law, logics, insurance law and manyother disciplines.
Existing Uzbek laws do not permit students in legal clinics the same rights as legal
representatives when handling cases. Therefore, students basically prepare the client forindependent representation in the court. In other words, in the pre-trial process, students prepare
possible scenario of dispute’s resolution and clarify to their client norms and their possible
application. Sometimes, students even prepare a speech for their client and provide preparation
regarding possible questions which might come from judge or trial participants.
Refer further to, Shuvro Prosun Sarker, Clinical Legal Education in Asia: Accessing Justice for theUnderprivileged (Springer, 2016); Sarker, Legal Education in Asia, 28–29.
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The main philosophy of the CLE is to provide access to justice for the poor, andsimultaneously, offer access to lawyering skills training, and professional values with ethicalstandards for law students. Hence, while providing public services, namely offering free legal aid
to vulnerable people, students obtain and use further in their legal studies an understanding of how
the law may unfairly affect or help disadvantaged people. Therefore, each CLE program includes
common components of being educational, student-centered, and social-justice related university
programs.
Before students-clinicians start working with individuals and their particular problems,
relevant instructor conducts initial theory workshops that provide a deeper understanding of
methodology and purpose of the CLE. Depending on the university, all students-clinicians must
generally carry a burden of approximately 80 hours training program - ‘Lawyer’s professional
skills’, and obtain basic practical knowledge for working with future clients. This program includes
training on such vital components as communication psychology, lawyer’s professional ethics,
interviewing skills, detection of the problem in the dispute and drafting legal consultations. It is a
general trend that the CLE in Uzbekistan in the initial stage of training, detects numerous
problematic issues in students’ abilities, including shortcomings in general theoretical curriculum
knowledge which, in turn, necessitates such workshops. On the other hand, these workshops
exclude top-down lecture format, but instead utilize active learning methods, such as; brainstorms,
focus-oriented discussion, work in small groups, visual demonstrations, simulated cases, debates,and seminars with guest lawyers and practitioners.307
Further, in the advanced level, students learn to draft legal documents used before andduring the trial process. Furthermore, supervisors constantly organize sample interviews to train
in students questioning skills based on lawyer’s ethics. A simulated moot court trial at the end of
the training is a form of graduation exam which detects talented students who receive formal
enrollment to clinic and a chance to work with real clients.
Basically, students participate in clinic’s work several times a week after finishing theirclasses (official law curriculum), usually starting in the evening. When a client wishes to seek legal
support in law clinic, he, first of all, must sign a pledge certifying an awareness that legal
consultation will be provided by students, but not qualified lawyers. Such pledge simultaneously
requires a client’s consent not to present claims if unsatisfied with the outcome of the dispute.
Afterwards, two or three students interview a client. Existing practice demonstrates thatinterviewing in small groups proves reliable because it limits a risk of missing some questions andfactual circumstances. In other words, while one student might simply forget asking about specificfacts, others can fill in the gap instead. A supervisor never participates in the interview, but often
observes the process of students’ independent work from aside. After finishing interview, students
organize a discussion session which includes a comprehensive analysis of case details, several
scenarios of legal applicability and dispute’s resolution. The last stage includes consultations withthe supervisor and, based on the outcome, reflection of most possible scenarios of dispute’s
resolution in written form. This form, or written legal consultation must contain both, the detailsof the dispute and its possible resolution based on accurate references to existing laws andregulations. When such written consultation is ready, students hand it over to the client, and if
necessary, provide further oral clarifications. It is always a client who makes a final decision andchoses between various scenarios of dispute resolution. If a client finally decides to follow students’
I. A Cherkashina, “Interaktivnie Metody Obucheniya”, in Amerikanskaya Assotsatsiya Yuristov, Tsentr Pravovykh
Issledovaniy UMED, Yuridicheskaya Klinika Po Ekologicheskomy Pravu, Ekologicheskaya Bezopasnost’ i Zashita
Prav Cheloveka. Metodicheskoe Posobie. (Tashkent: UMED, 2001), 4.
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consultation and apply the case to the court, students bear the responsibility for the preparation of
all necessary documents; petitions with legal claims, formal requests, acts and other documents tobe presented not only to court but other relevant public and non-public agencies. After completing
their work with a client, students collect all documents and submit it to the clinic’s archive towhich all other clinicians have an access. Such approach stimulates many students to address
previous cases and develops their skills in case study law.
V.1. Case Studies of Uzbek CLE Programs
The CLE development process and efforts from both domestic scholars and practitioners
have proven to be effective in multiple ways. Certain successful cases can be demonstrated throughevaluation of two CLE programs run in the UWED and the TSUL.
V.1.a. UWED Law Clinic
The first legal clinic (initially called as Environmental Law Clinic) in Uzbekistan was
founded in 2000 in the UWED. This clinic was founded based on a proposal initiated by theInternational Private and Civil Law chair lecturers and direct guidance and sponsorship from theAmerican Bar Association, Central and East European Law Initiative (ABA CEELI). The primarygoals of the Environmental Law Clinic included activities in terms of improving the theoreticaland practical skills of the future environmental lawyers as well as promoting public advocacy in
Uzbekistan.308
While in 2000, the legal ecological aspects drew a significant attention in the West, in
Uzbekistan such problems often fell into a grey zone of domestic law and, hence, a clinic with avery narrow specialization could not attract adequate number of clients. When in the mid-2000,
many U.S. - affiliated agencies and non-for-profits, including ABA CEELI could not obtain
official accreditation in Uzbekistan, the Environmental Law Clinic fell under the sponsorshipauspices of the UNDP and broadened its advocacy activities beyond just ecological legal-disputes.
Since then, its name is Legal Clinic under the UWED.
Since the mid-2000, the clinic run mainly by UWED’S International Law faculty lecturers,
extended its services to working more with socially vulnerable and marginalized individuals andcommunities. Simultaneously, law clinic provides students with a more structured training on freelegal counselling, ethical obligations, and learning law by working with real cases and people inorder to increase practical skills. Lecturers who work in the Clinic as supervisors, also actively
utilize the case study law obtained from the clinical experience, in their lectures in the faculty.
Hence, clinical cases perform a role of the source for study material for all International Law
faculty students and lecturer does not have to create the case independently. As long as such cases
mainly touch upon various fields of law, including family law, labor law, and housing law, bothlecturers and students in the faculty benefit reasonably by referring to cases which contain regularlegal updates.309
Alice R. Thomas, “Introduction to UWED Environmental Law Clinic Methodological Guidebook Ecological
Safety and Protection of Human Rights” in, Amerikanskaya Assotsatsiya Yuristov, Tsentr Pravovykh Issledovaniy
UMED, Yuridicheskaya Klinika Po Ekologicheskomy Pravu, Ekologicheskaya Bezopasnost’ i Zashita Prav
Cheloveka. Metodicheskoe Posobie. (Tashkent: UMED, 2001), 4.
309“Deutsch-Uzbekischer Juristendialog. Gedanken, Die Man Gerne Teilt.,” Juraklinik an Der Universitat Fur
Weltwirtschaft Und Diplomatie, 2013., http://juristendialog.de/wp/?p=185. [accessed on October 5, 2018]
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Currently, the UWED Clinic operates in two modes; as student-centered voluntary program,and free legal services initiative. Student-centered mode basically deals with teaching students
about general aspects of the CLE, methodologies, plan development and its further demonstration,
professional legal ethics and client confidentiality, communicating and interviewing client, andcounselling. Free services include factual interviewing with clients, legal research and analysis,
proposing various scenarios of dispute resolution based on a logical application of law, advising
to clients.
In 2018, an interview in the UWED has
revealed that 17 students of the International law
faculty enrolled the Legal Clinic most of whom werefemale students with a Russian as a native language.
All students had two years of basic legal education
provided under the UWED’s law curriculum and they
had different purposes and motivations for taking partin the Clinic – for example, to gain professional skills
in law, to experiment with an aspect of the legal
profession. Many students also stated that byparticipating in the Clinic’s work they hoped to
improve communication skills, critical thinking, andImage 5.1: Newly enrolled studentsexpected, thus, certain self-development.310
The same interview also referred to the clinicians prepare their reports during theexperience of Clinic’s alumni participating in the new brainstorm session. (UWED, 2018)students’ enrollment procedure. Alumni interviewees expressed basically a positive attitude
towards the knowledge and experience obtained in the Clinic. For most, working in the Clinic
proved successful to their expectations, not only in terms of improving practical skills andknowledge of legal provisions and theories, but also their understanding how law may affectpeople in various life situations. These alumni also pointed that CLE provided them with a clear
insight of difference between traditional top-down lectures in the faculty, where professor referred
only to written law without pausing on how certain provisions work in practice, and real legal
practice offered in the Clinic. As a symbolic reward for students and lecturers who volunteer inthe clinic’s activities, the UNDP annually organizes and sponsors a short-term summer school
program in one of the local resort areas.
The UWED’S Legal Clinic became a pioneer in challenging a traditional legal learning,which has been provided in the form of long lectures without students’ active involvement toanalyze the law per se but assuring their ability to memorize written law. Several progressive
lecturers try to challenge the legal educational system which is based on listening, reading statutes
and remembering provisions by providing opportunities for students to practice law while dealing
with real people and their disputes. However, the Clinic’s operation is currently limited by theclinic supervisor and lecturers’ research specialization and professional interests which is often
associated with civil law area, and hence, offered impartial legal assistance cannot cover multiple
legal problems of community.

310

Interview with the Legal Clinic Applicants (Tashkent, UWED, February 25, 2018), Tashkent, UWED.
110

V.1.b. TSUL Law Clinic
In 2017, legal clinic was re-introduced in the renewed TSUL.311 Since its re-introduction,
this clinic focuses mainly on free legal aid and provides legal assistance to people, in which TSUL
students engage actively into interview and survey processes. The clinic focuses both oncommunity in Tashkent and some rural areas around the capital city. Faculty staff of the TSUL
and lawyers who work at the center set up objectives, training plans and, often, in cooperation with
the MOJ and Bar association, chose target communities. Students who volunteer in the clinic’s
work are exposed to the real legal problems and assistance on common law and specific legal
issues in communities.
The collaboration between the TSUL, MOJ, and
Bar Association have fostered the so- called fieldcommunity consulting program. In this program, students
and relevant supervisors go out into the rural areas andoffer free legal consultations and support to local
community members. Community consultations is hardfor students because they have never experienced
interviewing or questioning local people. However, after
communicating and counseling small groups of people ona regular basis, students improve their skills in legalnormative search and preparation of well-argumented
consultations. Such activities also improve students’skills in research and data collection.312
Image 5.2: TSUL Legal Clinic students organize a free legal
consultations and other legal aid for local community in Chirchik.
(TSUL, 2018)313

Apart from being a resource of access to justice for underprivileged communities. CLE in
the TSUL contributes reasonably in terms of educational value. Although the clinic employs asmall number of supervising professionals, it could provide access to legal consultation services
to more than 160 claims since September 2017 and this number is regularly increasing. Suchconsultations and cases form a solid background for students theoretical and practical knowledge
which they actively utilize in course discussions and future profession.
The TSUL Clinic also arranges practice-based internships for own students. An interview
from several TSUL students in 2018, has revealed that those who undertook their internship in theclinic reflected more positive opinion as compared to students who commenced their internship inother agencies. They asserted in particular that clinic helped them “to better understand therelationship between the society and law, as well as introduced vital professional skills required
for each legal professional.”314

Postanovlenie Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan 2932 O merakh Po Korennomu Sovershenstvovaniyu Sistemi i
Povisheniyu Effektivnosti Podgotovki Kadrov v Tashkentskom Gosudarstvennom Yuridicheskom Universitete. April
28, 2017.
312
MOJ of Uzbekistan, http://www.minjust.uz/ru/press-center/news/89576/ [Accessed on October 5, 2018]313
http://www.tsul.uz/ru/informatsiya/news/yuridicheskaya-klinika-na-sluzhbe-naroda-2-oj-den [Accessed on
October 5, 2018]
314
Mr.D, Ms. N, Mr.S, Mr.M., TSUL LL.B students (two of the students are in Evropotok and other two in Natspotok).
311

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Sub-conclusion to the Chapter
The CLE in contemporary Uzbekistan is still in an advanced beginning stage. It might be
too reckless to assert that the CLE in Uzbekistan has a very promising tendency. Making the
proposal that there is no future might also be also erroneous. Several factors support the potentialof the CLE’s progressive movement in Uzbekistan. One of the most crucial factors is students’
active engagement into the CLE process in two public universities in Uzbekistan offering degrees
in law. After more than ten years of CLE advocacy in Uzbekistan. The capability of this program
for local legal education is widely recognized by lecturers and donor agencies. On the other hand,a centralized curriculum development process with public agencies at its top do not fully recognize
the CLE as a required method of learning law which should be integrated within official law
curriculum. It is reasonable to state that this initiative will definitely enrich the present state of
traditional, lecture-based higher legal education in Uzbekistan.
Uzbekistan needs more and more professionally trained lawyers with adequate ethicalskills. Whether implemented in the future as a separate program or curriculum integrated course,
CLE will definitely contribute in terms of providing its graduates with fresh legal experience andknowledge, practical skills and professional values. In addition, if the CLE operates in anenvironment focused on a less restrictive representation of underprivileged communities in the
court, it would assist local law teaching HEIs in nurturing future professionals with a stronger
awareness of justice and social responsibility.

112VI. Doctorate Level Legal Education (Ph.D. and D.Sc.)
Introduction to the Chapter
VI.1. A brief overview of doctoral legal education evolution (the Soviet period, the 1991-2017,
the post-2017 period)
The Soviet period
In the Soviet time, Uzbekistan, similarly to other former Soviet Central Asian republics
followed the centralized system of the Soviet legal education. In general, as the first step in higher
education, students studied law for five years at the university faculty or institute and obtained a
Diploma of Specialist (Legal Professional).315 It was a commonly accepted academic qualification
which nowadays is split into LL.B. and LL.M. degrees.
The post-graduate studies included a two-step degree program; the Candidate of Legal
Sciences (Kandidat Yuridicheskikh Nauk) and the Doctor of Legal Sciences (Doctor
Yuridicheskikh Nauk). It is hard to compare these degrees with the Western system or that of somestates in Asia (for example: Japan or Korea).
Entry and research in the post-graduate level were highly competitive, and only a small
minority of applicants from Uzbekistan could enroll and commence their post-graduate studies in
the Academy of Sciences of the Uzbek SSR, Academy of Sciences of the USSR or other research
institutions across the Soviet Union. The post-graduate legal research involved both, full-time andpart-time featured programs. 316 Examination included one foreign language, exam on
specialization, and the history of the Communist Party. In case of admission, each student worked
under the supervision of the academic advisor, who individually elaborated a research progressplan for the whole study period. Such plan was a subject of approval by the scientific council ofthe respective institution. Graduation requirements included exam on historical and dialecticalmaterialism, one foreign language, major legal discipline, and Marxist-Leninist philosophy exam.
Final step included the submission and defense of a dissertation.317
The committee allowed a candidate to submit the dissertations in case if it was a “finishedpiece of research containing a new resolution of a consequential scientific problem, which [had]material significance for the respective branch of knowledge and display[ed] the author’s capacity
to undertake independent scientific research and a profound theoretical knowledge of his
discipline...”318 Upon submission of the research thesis and successful oral defense, the academy
was entitled to confer the Candidate of Science degree (Kandidat Nauk).
The next stage included a more advanced degree - the Doctor of Science D.Sc. (Doktor
Nauk). The study of D.Sc. had no fixed length and could sometimes take up to 10 years. Thisdegree was the highest in the hierarchy of the Soviet legal educational doctrine. 319 Review ofStacey Steele and Kathryn Taylor, Legal Education in Asia: Globalization, Change and Contexts (Routledge,2009), 144.
316
Candidates of 35 years old or less could apply for a full-time, whereas those aged 45 or less - for a part-time
research program. As a prerequisite, both categories of applicants had to demonstrate the degree of legal professionaland experience in carrying out scientific research.
317
Butler, Soviet Law, 69.
318
Butler, Soviet Law.
319
By 1950, a series of reforms unified the legal education in the former USSR and decreased the number of HEIs
and their students to a required minimum. Most senior law professors in Uzbekistan who obtained their degrees in
the USSR, commonly studied at law institutes or university faculties in Moscow, Leningrad, Irkutsk, Saratov, Kazan’,
315

113

doctoral legal education of Soviet period demonstrates several essential characteristics. It first had
to respond to the state requirements dictated by the Communist Party and other central organs of
the USSR. Furthermore, every legal dissertation was heavily influenced by the Marxist theory ofpolitical economy and theory of the development of social classes.320 Doctoral dissertation was a
subject of compliance with a set of requirements. In particular, it had to be “an independent work
based on the author’s research in which scientific propositions [were] formulated and justified andas an aggregate [could] qualify as a new long-term orientation in the respected field or as atheoretical generalization and resolution of a large scientific problem ...”321
Degree andAward Diploma
Legal
Professional(Spetsialist)
Candidatedegree(Kandidat Nauk)
Aspirantura

Program
LengthCredits

Admissions
Requirements

Quality Assuranceand Accreditation

Four-five
years

Study
time
is
quantified in hours

Diploma of Specialist(in law)

State Attestation

Three years

Not Applicable

Doctoral degree(Doktor Nauk)Not fixed
Min five years

Not Applicable

Master’s diploma(LL.M)
Candidate degree(Kandidat Nauk)

State
of
Accreditation(Enables to issue
state recognized
qualifications)
State Accreditation

Tab 6.1: The Soviet system of higher legal education.

The 1992-2017
After the collapse of the USSR and establishment of first law faculties and law institute in
Uzbekistan, the higher education reformists introduced two new Western degrees - Bachelor(LL.B.) and Master (LL.M), instead of the Soviet-modeled Specialist in Law. Bachelor level
usually takes 4-5 years, while master program - 2 years. 322 Upon introducing these novelties, thesystem became more time-consuming for those aiming at studying at the doctorate level. Except
for LL.B and LL.M, up to 2017, the degrees awarded under the post-graduate legal education
system (Candidate of Science, and Doctor of Science) remained virtually unchanged. The‘reformers’ of the independence period only intended to switch the philosophy of doctoral
education from the state-centered into the one based more on the ideas of the rule of law, asuperiority of human rights and due process principle. The practical aspects, however, mostly
reproduced the Soviet-style approach. Comparatively to other former Soviet states whichsignificantly reformed their higher education systems (including, doctoral) to align closely to the
Bologna standards, Uzbekistan during the initial 15 years (1991- 2017) still maintained the Soviet
system. Some sources assert that in this period, between 1991 - 2008, more than 50 D.Sc. andabout 206 Candidates of Science could successfully submit and defend their dissertations.323
and Tashkent. Refer further to A. Kodintsev, “Legal Education in the USSR in the Postwar Period,” Legal Educationand Science no. No.2 (2008): 35–39.
320
Shebanov, Legal Educational Institutes; “Essays on History of Legal Scientific Entities in the USSR” (Moscow:
Science, 1976), Moscow.
321
Butler, Soviet Law, 69.
322
Until the reform of the UWED in July 2018, the International Law faculty implemented a five-year LL. B program.
It may also take only one year in the LL.M Program now if a student opts for a full-time option.
323
V.A. Artikova, Metodika Prepodavaniya Yuridicheskih Disciplin (Tashkent: TGYI, 2008), 12.
114

Degree andAward Diploma
LL.B.
(Bakalavriat)

LL.M(Magistratura)
Candidatedegree(Kandidat Nauk)
Aspirantura
Doctoral degree(Doktor Nauk)

Program
LengthCredits

Admissions
Requirements
Diploma of completionof primary, secondary
schooleducation(College, Lyceum)
Bachelor’s diploma(LL.B)

Four-five
years

Study time isquantified in hours

Two years

Study time isquantified in hours

Two years

Not Applicable

Master’s diploma(LL.M)

Not fixed
Min five years

Not Applicable

Candidate degree(Kandidat Nauk)

Quality Assuranceand Accreditation
State Attestation(With a focus on
the quality ofeducation)
State Attestation
(s/a)
State
of
Accreditation(Enables to issue
state recognized
qualifications)
State Accreditation(s/a)

Tab 6.2: The 1992 - 2017 system of higher legal education in Uzbekistan. (Based on WENR, Bologna-Inspired
Educational Reform in Central Asia).324

The post-2017 period
In July 2017, authorities agreed to partly follow international standards and introduce thedegree of the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) as a ‘basic’ doctorate level, and D.Sc. as a doctorate
level.325 It came up as a significant development because the number of young Uzbek scholars withforeign Ph.D. (and authentic) degrees has been continuously increasing. If before 2017, thegovernment preferred to ignore doctoral degrees obtained from foreign universities and left many
Ph.D. holders with unclear status, the present framework legally recognizes such degrees and evenshows some signs of prioritizing foreign education.
On the other hand, although doctorate education in Uzbekistan has been visibly gravitating
towards Bologna system, the essential structure left widely unchanged. In particular, the new
statutory regulations did not abolish the level of Candidate of Science (Kandidat Nauk) indeed,but merely replaced it by the Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy).326 Furthermore, the degree of D.Sc. isleft unchanged with the status of the highest degree in science. Candidate can only commence itupon obtaining of the Ph.D. in law. 327 Hence, while one of the remnants of the old system
Candidate of Science is de jure phased out, in practice, it is replaced by the Ph.D. which is just aprelude to the D.Sc. degree - another remnant of the Soviet legal education which remains within
the current system as the highest level of legal education. Such settings are principally different
from systems implemented in the neighboring Central Asian states where the degree of D.Sc. isphased out or can be commenced after obtaining LL.M. in law.328

Refer further to https://wenr.wes.org/2015/05/bologna-inspired-education-reform-central-asia [accessed on June30, 2018]
325
1. Ukaz Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan N 4958, 2017.
326
Including as Independent Researcher (Samostoyatel’noe Soiskatel’stvo). Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov O
Merakh po Dal’neyshemu Sovershenstvovaniyu Sistemy Poslevuzovskogo Obrazovaniya N 304, 2017.
327
Annex I, Ibid
328
Azerbaijan (phased out), Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan (Diploma of LL.M), refer further to Nick Clark, BolognaInspired Educational Reform in Central Asia, Asia Pacific, May 4, 2015
324

115

Degree andAward Diploma
LL.B(Bakalavriat)

LL.M(Magistratura)
PH.D. (Doctor ofPhilosophy)
D.SC. (Doctor of
Science)

Program
LengthFour-five years

Two years
Not more than
three years
Not more than
three years

Credits

Study time isquantified in hours
Study time isquantified in hours
Study time isquantified in hours
Study time isquantified in hours

Admissions
Requirements
Diploma of completionof primary, secondary
schooleducation(College, Lyceum)
Bachelor’s diploma(LL.B.)
Master’s diploma(LL.M)
Doctoral
diploma(PH.D.)

Quality Assuranceand Accreditation
State Attestation(With a focus on
the quality ofeducation)
State Attestation
State Attestation
State Attestation

Tab 6.3: The post-2017 system of higher education in Uzbekistan.

VI.2. The Role of the Supreme Attestation Commission (VAK)
The Supreme Attestation Commission (Vysshaya Attestatsionnaya Komissiya or VAK) is
another Soviet feature widely left unchanged in the independence period. It was re-established in
1992 as an organ competent for preparation of scientific and pedagogical staff. 329 This organfunctions under the Cabinet of Ministers and its chairman’s position is equal to the ministerial post,
while the main scientific secretary is a vice minister. 330 The VAK has been traditionally
maintaining the dominant competency concerning the doctoral research and conferral of
postgraduate degrees in Uzbekistan.331 For many years it has been playing a central role in theattestation (monitoring and conferral of degrees of Ph.D. and D.Sc.) of doctoral candidates andbearing the responsibility for the quality of doctoral research.
The VAC creates and controls the Scientific Councils in the TSUL and the UWED. The
Scientific Council, in turn, controls the doctoral candidate’s progress and has the right to accept
the dissertation once it is ready for public defense. However, the Scientific Council’s decision toconfer a doctoral degree to a candidate is only enacted upon reaching an agreement within the
VAC. Hence, the VAK is a monopoly organization which bears an absolute authority and performs
multiple tasks in the field of doctoral research in Uzbekistan.332
Conferral of doctoral degrees in Uzbekistan adheres to a very centralized system with the
VAK occupying the top position in the hierarchy. Apart from it, there are other public agencies MOHSSE, MOPE, MOJ, Academy of Sciences, Committee on Coordination of Development of
Science and Technology, which take rather a secondary part in the doctoral level education policy.
Such bureaucratically centralized system was inherited from the Soviet past and, apparently, in
conflict with the most recent international trends which gravitate towards decentralization ofhigher education system and granting a broader competency regarding doctorate research to the
HEIs themselves.

Ukaz Prezidenta Republiki Uzbekistan N 371, 1992.
3, Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov N 421, 1992.
331
Annex 4, Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov N 365, 2012. (amended in 2017)
332
Ibid, II, 7, In particular, it concentrates a wide range of functions, such as, systematic monitoring of doctorate
studies, creating scientific councils and specifying its regulatory framework, creating official list of periodicals inwhich doctoral candidates must publish their papers, undertaking state expertise of postgraduate dissertations andconfirming the decisions of the Scientific Councils. Furthermore, it bears competence in nostrification (equivalenceexam) of foreign degrees, issuing doctoral diplomas and reviewing appeals from candidates.
329
330

116

Chairman(Ministerial post)

Main Scientific Secretary

Monitoring Dept

Secretariat
Main Inspectors on
Scientific Majors

Data-Analytical Dept
Accounting
Legal Consultant

Scientific Councils in HEI
Fig 6.1: The structure of the Supreme Attestation Commission (VAK). The total number of staff is 20 people, outof which 16 - are managing and - 4 assisting staff. Scientific Councils are created and subordinated to the VAK.

VI.3. Admissions (requirements and entrance exam, quota, state-sponsored grant/contract-based
study/stipend)
Requirements and entrance exam
Currently, both the TSUL and the UWED offer basic doctorate and doctorate level courses
on the same admissions and research conditions. A candidate applying to the Ph.D. level can doso as an ordinary doctorate student (doktorant) or an independent researcher (soiskatel’). An
applicant is required to have completed an LL.M program and demonstrate adequate researchexperience (minimum one scientific article in the peer-reviewed periodical and at least two
abstracts in the scientific collection papers). It is essential that previous research experience isrelated to the proposed Ph.D. program and research expertise could form the basis of the proposed
Ph.D. dissertation. Independent researchers must have at least two years of pedagogicalexperience.333
A candidate applying to the D.Sc. level is required to have completed the Ph.D. or
equivalent program and demonstrate significant research achievements (at least three scientificarticles in the peer-reviewed periodicals and, two theses published in the scientific collection
papers or presented in the conferences) and the scientific report on the proposed dissertation. It isessential that previous research experience is related to the proposed Ph.D. and forms the basis of
the proposed D.Sc dissertation. Those applying as independent researchers must have at least two
years of pedagogical experience.334

As a part of application documents, a candidate is also required to submit a relevant application form, a copy of
the workbook, copy of relevant diploma, list of published research papers, if a candidate is a holder of State
Scholarship of the President of Uzbekistan, he is required to submit the relevant certificate. III. 9 Postanovlenie
Kabineta Ministrov O Merakh po Dal’neyshemu Sovershenstvovaniyu Sistemy Poslevuzovskogo Obrazovaniya N 304.
334
Subject to the same requirements as shown above. Ibid, 10-12.
333

117

Admissions to the Ph.D. and D.Sc. is based on the competitive exam held annually between
November 1-25. Those wishing to enroll into Ph.D. level are required to undergo the two-level
exam: legal major and foreign language. In case if a candidate has a valid TOEFL (PBT) not lessthan 567 (iBT) not less than 87, or IELTS score at least 5,5, or locally taken domestic foreign
language test, there is no necessity in taking a foreign language exam.335 Admission commissionin each HEI creates legal major exam questions based on the specifics of that major.336 Majors varyin the TSUL and the UWED. The D.Sc. level does not stipulate admissions exam. Instead,candidates must undergo an interview. 337 The shape and organization of entrance exams andinterviews fall to the competence of the Admissions Commissions which are formed andsometimes headed by the rector.338
Quota
Both the TSUL and the UWED, analyze annual requirement in doctoral candidates and,based on their research capacities, forward their inquiries on admission numbers to the Ministry
for Innovative Development. This ministry, in cooperation with the Ministry of Economy and theMinistry of Finance annually allocates admission quotes for doctoral level study in each HEI.
Quotas are usually limited and, therefore, admission becomes highly competitive.339
State-sponsored grant/contract-based study/stipend
The state covers the tuition fee of those candidates who enroll the Ph.D. and D.Sc. on afull-time basis. Furthermore, the state pays doctoral candidates monthly stipends. The Ph.D.
candidate receives a monthly amount of research associate, whereas D.Sc. candidate's stipend isequal to the salary of the senior lecturer with a Ph.D. degree. International students do not receive
any stipend and furthermore, have to cover their tuition fee.340
Degrees
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. D.)
Basic doctorate level
Admission requirements
LL.M Degree
Minimum one scientific article in the peer-reviewed
periodical
Minimum two abstracts in the scientific collection
papers(Independent Researcher) - Two years of pedagogicalexperience
Admissions exam
Legal Major

Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)
Doctorate level
Ph.D. or equal degree
Minimum three scientific articles in the peerreviewed periodicals
Minimum two theses published in the scientificcollection papers or presented in the conferences)
A scientific report on the proposed dissertation;
Educational expertiseInterview

Test of CEFR - B2 level about possessing English given by the State Testing Center.
III. 22, Postanovlenie Kabineta Ministrov O Merakh po Dal’neyshemu Sovershenstvovaniyu Sistemy
Poslevuzovskogo Obrazovaniya N 304.
337
Ibid.
338
Upon negotiation with VAK
339
24, Ibid.
340
8, 31 Ibid.
335
336

118

Foreign Language (IELTS or TOEFL)
Duration
Not more than three years
StipendEqual to research associate salarySupervision
Academic supervisor (Ph.D. or D.Sc.)

Not more than three years
Equal to senior lecturer salary
Academic advisor (D.Sc. only) or none

Tab 6.4: Post-graduate admissions related features.

VI.4. Research, dissertation and final qualification requirements
To obtain a doctoral degree, candidates in cooperation with their relevant supervisors oradvisors must, within the first month upon their admission, prepare an individual plan on the
preparation and defense of the dissertation. Separately, academic supervisor or consultant isrequired to develop for the doctoral candidate a theoretical-methodological plan which includes
elements of the universal concept, methodology, theory and scientific methods. A candidate issupposed to work on these aspects during the first year of doctoral studies. According to the rule,
the academic supervisor or advisor spends around 100 academic hours for research with a doctoralcandidate.
Doctoral education system stipulates a framework of constant research process monitoring.
Given the complexity of each doctoral program type, this framework presupposes rather general
requirements to be met within a particular timeframe, usually three years.
Degrees
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. D.)
Basic doctorate level
First Year
Prepared individual plan
Theoretical-methodological program
One publication (dissertation related)

Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)
Doctorate level

One conference report
Analytical review of dissertation topic
Seminar report on analytical review results (incooperation with supervisor)

Prepared individual plan
Ready first and second draft dissertation chapters
At least three publications (dissertation related)
Published international and domestic conference
reports
Oral report in the scientific conference or seminar
Analytical study of dissertation topic
Seminar report on analytical review results (incooperation with supervisor)

Second YearOne publication (dissertation related)
One published conference report
One publication in a foreign periodical (dissertation
related)Seminar report on preliminary dissertation outcomes(independently)
Individual plan report

Ready third and fourth draft dissertation chapters
At least four publications (dissertation related).
(Including one in a foreign periodical)
One published international and domestic conference
reportSeminar report on initial dissertation outcomes(independently)
Oral report in the scientific conference or seminar
Individual plan report119Third Year
Publications (including in foreign periodicals)
Ready doctoral dissertation draft
Public discussion of the dissertation in the scientificdepartment of the HEIAt least three publications (dissertation related)
Published monography on dissertation outcomes
Ready doctoral dissertation draft
Public discussion of the dissertation in the scientificdepartment of the HEI

Tab 6.5: Required research progress of Ph.D. and D.Sc. candidates according to the monitoring framework.

Hence, to graduate, doctoral students need to spend not less three years commencing theirresearch, drafting doctoral dissertation, preparing publications and conference reports. A graduate
student must undertake such obligations in close cooperation with relevant supervisors andadvisors. Before oral defense, Ph.D. candidates are required to pass qualification exams on; legal
major and foreign language. The D.Sc. level does not stipulate such exams but requires candidates
to publish a monography which contains doctoral research outcomes. Candidates in both types ofprograms may submit their dissertations in Uzbek, Russian, Karakalpak, English or any otherlanguage agreed with the VAC. 341 Graduation and dissertation requirements for both types ofdoctoral research as well as the main difference between them is more visible in the table below.
Graduation requirements
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. D.)
Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)
Basic doctorate level
Doctorate level
Qualification exam on legal major Exam on foreign
Published monography on dissertation results
language
At least three publications (including one in a foreign At least ten publications (including one in a foreign
periodical)
periodical)
Presenting the dissertation topic at domestic and Presenting the dissertation topic at local andinternational scientific conferencesinternational scientific conferences
Dissertation requirements(In Uzbek, Russian, Karakalpak, English or another language)Must address and resolve scientific or practicalissues;Must have a new, scientifically substantiated solution Or must elaborate a complex of theoretical aspects
to the actual problem and must contribute to the aimed at perspective scientific achievement;
relevant field of knowledge
Or must develop theoretical-methodological rules orwell-substantiated solutions which significantly
contribute to the state of a particular sphereTab 6.6: Graduation and dissertation requirements.

Upon submission and successful oral defense, candidates receive their degrees and relevant
diplomas issued and conferred by the VAC. The law establishes stringent rules and deadlines forboth doctoral candidates and their respective supervisors for the preparation and submission of thedissertation for the final check and oral defense. Furthermore, according to the guidelines,
scientific and scientific-pedagogical (teaching) staff who are Ph.D. and D.Sc. degree holders are
subject to the following qualification requirements:

341

4-5, Ibid.
120

Final qualification requirements
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. D.)
Basic doctorate level
Familiarity with a common scientific or concrete
disciplinary research methodology;
Ability to detect and substantiate the problem;
Do focus-oriented research;
Ability to analyze and systematize the research data;

Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)
Doctorate level
Must have deep, fundamental knowledge in the area;

Ability to concretely formulate the problem andconclusions by relying on the research results

Ability to conduct fundamental research on a highlevel and resolve significant scientific and practicalissuesPresent results
implementation

Implement results into practice

for

their

furtherpractical

Tab 6.7: Final qualifications requirements

VI.5. Doctoral majors at the TSUL
Presently, the TSUL offers Ph.D. and D.Sc. doctoral courses in the following directions:
Permanent SC
12.00.03 342 Civil law. Business law. Family law.
International private law.
12.00.04 Civil procedure law. Economic procedural
law. Arbitration process and mediation.
12.00.08 Criminal law. Prevention of offenses.
Criminology. Criminal executive law.
12.00.09 Criminal trial. Forensic science. Operativesearch activity and judicial examination (legal
science)One-off advice SC (Razoviy Nauchniy Sovet)
12.00.05 Labor law. Social security law
12.00.06 Natural resources law. Agrarian law.
Environmental law.
12.00.07 Judicial power. Prosecutor’s supervision.
Law enforcement. Advocacy.

Tab 6.8: Directions of doctoral programs at the TSUL

The Scientific Council at the TSUL is composed of 19 legal scholars and professionals
from the MOJ, Supreme Court, Chamber of Commerce, Prosecutor’s office, and several HEIs
including the TSUL itself. 343 Given four different majors of the doctoral research which canthematically be split into two groups, (A) Criminal law (12.00.08, 12.00.09), and (B) Civil law(12.00.03, 12.00.04), the TSUL has established two relevant Scientific Seminars. The A Group iscompetent for the criminal law directions and includes law scholars and practitioners from the
TSUL and other public organizations (mainly Criminal Court and Prosecutor's Office). The B
Group bears the responsibility for civil law directions and is formed predominantly from scholars.

State standard code
Although the amount of 20 people is approved, available data lists only 19 names. Refer further tohttp://www.tsul.uz/en/science/dissertation-council-a-scientific-seminar [accessed on June 28, 2018]
342
343

121

By 2017, four doctoral candidates in total, three D.Sc. and one Ph.D. defended theirdissertations at the TSUL. Out of these four, two D.Sc. candidates submitted their dissertations on
the topics related to the civil law344 and two others (D.Sc. and Ph.D.) on criminal law.345
VI.6. Doctoral major at the UWED
Сurrently, the UWED offers four doctoral majors out of which only one law related 12.00.10 International law. The Scientific Council is composed of 21 law professors
predominantly from HEIs (including three law professors from the International law department
and politics and economy professors from other departments of the UWED).346
In 2017, two Ph.D. candidates defended their doctoral dissertation on non-legal, primarily
political majors. In 2018, two doctoral candidates (Ph.D. and D.Sc.) have presented to the
Scientific seminar their dissertations on the 12.00.10 international law major.347 Candidates usuallydraft their dissertations in Russian or Uzbek; however, all of them prepare a paper with a brief
overview in English. Sometimes when a candidate is competent enough in English, he may beallowed to write the dissertation in English. The principal problem here is the level of English of
relevant academic advisors, which is traditionally low in Uzbekistan. In fact, as many legal
scholars studied in the USSR and were mainly exposed to the Russian language environment, it israre that academic advisors supervise in languages other than Uzbek or Russian.
Sub-Conclusion to the Chapter
The current post-graduate education in Uzbekistan implements peculiar hybridcharacteristics of modern (Ph.D.) and Soviet originated (D.Sc.) degrees. In the recent several years
the government has been demonstrating certain positive steps to reform the post-graduate
education, particularly making it more systematized and flexible for international standards. Oneof the biggest concerns and persistent critics of the current legal doctoral education in Uzbekistan
is concentrated around the State Attestation Commission (VAK) an outdated and heavily
bureaucratized organ which turns the whole process of doctoral research and its subsequent
defense very centralized. The critics of the VAK within the scope of the present research draws aseparate attention on the negative impact of the centralized system guided by VAK on the principleof academic freedom and unreasonable sophistication of the research process. In the course of thepresent pioneer reforms of making legal research institutions more autonomous, one canpresuppose that VAC may soon disappear from the structure of the post-doctoral research. This
assertion may sound more solid in light of the fact that typical institutions ceased to exist long ago
in many other post-Soviet republics.
Dissertations titled: 12.00.03 ‘Regulation of Civil Relations on the Internet', and 12.00.03 ‘Improving the Legal
Regulation on Innovation.'
345
Dissertations titled: 12.00.08 ‘Improving the Efficiency of the Prevention Function of the Penitentiary System’,and (Ph.D.) 12.00.08 ‘Responsibility for the Theft with the Use of Computer Facilities’.
346
Academy of Science, Tashkent State Institute of Oriental Studies, MOJ Lawyer’s Training center, MOFA, Branchof Russian University named after G.V. Plekhanov in Tashkent, Parliament, State Security Service Institute and the
UWED. There are only six specialists in the 12.00.10 International law field. Refer further tohttp://www.uwed.uz/en/pages/academic-council [accessed on June 28, 2018]
347
Dissertations titled: 12.00.10 ‘Theoretical-Practical Aspects of the International Information Law Formation'(D.Sc.), and ‘Reservations in the Modern International Contract law: Theory and Practice in the Republic of
Uzbekistan.'
344

122

Conclusion
In a broader historical dimension, the legal education’s evolution in Uzbekistan
demonstrates two main transitions; from theological to socialist, and from socialist to the modern
legal education which is de jure non-socialist, but in fact, bears clear socialist characteristics. The
first two decades of the post-Soviet period in Uzbekistan have demonstrated that law teaching
institutions were left behind the transition process and remained widely untouched and, thus,increasingly unable to conceptualize a new form of legal training and produce a new generation oflegal professionals. Simultaneously, the increase in the popularity of studying law in Uzbekistan
in the context of its unclear nature since its independence - is a large post-communist phenomenon.
As it is obvious from the chapters of this book, the legal education system in the presentday Uzbekistan is undergoing through a difficult period of obscure reforms. Regardless theintentions of the policymakers, existing small number of the law teaching HEIs have been
maintaining ex-socialist curriculums and strong state-centrist components. On the other hand, acritical necessity to reform existing factual condition of legal education has subsequently resulted
in certain attempts to create programs and specializations, as well as what local educators unclearlyaddress as ‘innovative’ teaching technologies. Maintaining such old and new compounds
simultaneously poses an unresolved challenge, especially between the theoretical and practicalelements of legal education in Uzbekistan. What can be observed recently is an apparent
gravitation of legal education from mainly theoretical settings towards professional legal practicewith a wider involvement of non-academic practitioners. Too much legal practice and decreasing
amount of academic training in the education process in turn, raise serious concerns regarding the
traditional philosophy of legal education. Such concerns appear as a result of objective and wellfounded fear that too much of legal practice can eventually kill the academic legal education. In
the conditions of unparalleled existence of theoretical and practical compounds, another challenge
is absence in the process of legal education of a legal pedagogy component. The outcome of thisresearch specifically suggests that legal pedagogy in harmonious coexistence with legal theory andadequate amount of practice is an efficient instrument. It would enable graduates of law faculties
to obtain skills that would help in preparing prognosis of the scenario of legal disputes with solid
justifications based on a reasonable interpretation and application of laws. The present state ofteaching law aims exceptionally at training students the skills to mechanically identify theapplicable laws is outdated. The process of legal education involving all three components to an
adequate level is expected to train students constantly think of reasons and the theoreticaljustifications for the laws being implemented in particular situation.
Presently, the legal research in Uzbekistan needs specific components that may contributein reanimating it from its stagnating condition. A further enhancement of academic freedom andkeen interest in providing support for the legal research from both public and non-public
stakeholders may pave the way for such reanimation and contribute to the advancement of thephilosophy of law and its education in Uzbekistan. Conceptualization of law is another serious
component. The imported disciplines, such as legal ethics, sociology of law, lawyer’s professional
responsibility, legal-comparative research and analysis, cannot contribute reasonably to thesuccessful curriculum unless they are well-conceptualized and enable students to specify legal
contradictions occurring in the contemporary Uzbekistan. In this regard, comparative law should
not be directed towards simply transplantation of foreign laws, as it is the case presently, but must
enable professionals to understand laws in a comparative perspective with foreign systems andcreate norms out of local characteristics and requirements of own society.
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128

Ismatov Aziz (Designated Assistant Professor)
Dr. Ismatov Aziz is a Designated Assistant Professor, Center for Asian Legal
Exchange, Nagoya University. He completed his LL.B studies in International Law
at the University of World Economy and Diplomacy (Uzbekistan) and his LL.M at
the Graduate School of Law(GSL)/Nagoya University (Japan).
Since obtaining his Doctoral degree in Law at Nagoya University in 2014, Dr.
Ismatov worked in a position of Designated Assistant Professor at the GSL of
Nagoya University where his primary duties included providing research support tothe doctoral candidates. Since April 2019, Dr. Ismatov holds a position of a
Designated Assistant Professor at the Center for Asian Legal Exchange. In thisposition, Dr. Ismatov is engaged in the cooperation and research of legal andpolitical issues in Asia.
Dr. Ismatov’s research centers on countries in transition from socialism to a market
economy. In his recent publications as a sole author or co-author (for ex.)
“Abolishing Capital Punishment in Uzbekistan - Between External Pressure andPragmatism” (Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law)
Zeitschrift für die Gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft, Vol 130 (1), 2018; “Historical
Discourse of Mahalla Functions in Uzbekistan” [Yearbook of East-European Law]
Jahrbuch fur Östrecht, Vol 59. (1), 2018, and “Developmental Trajectory of Mahalla
Laws in Uzbekistan; From Soft Law to the Statutory Law”, Asian Law Bulletin, Vol
4, 2018, he focuses on human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in the postsocialist states.
Dr. Ismatov is a member of the Australasian Association for Communist and PostCommunist Studies (AACPCS). He has made numerous academic presentations andreports at the international conferences on topics related to the legal problems oftransition societies.

C ALE Discuss i on P ap er No. 18
Legal Education in Uzbekistan: Historical Overview and Challenges ofTransition
AuthorDr. Ismatov Aziz

Published byCenter for Asian Legal Exchange (CALE)
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Tel: +81 (0)52-789-2325
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