The article proves that the primary tasks of Uzbek government involved in achieving political and legal literacy and a high level of legal awareness have been defined, with the aim of establishing a comprehensive, permanent system for the development of political culture and legal culture. Moreover, the article explains the terms of legal culture, political culture and its types. There are some facts about Uzbekistan and its political and legal mechanisms to achieve high political and legal culture of the population.
Keywords: Uzbekistan, political culture, legal culture, legal state, civil society, youth
Uzbekistan is a unitary, constitutional, presidential republic, comprising twelve provinces, one autonomous republic and a capital city. The Constitution of the Republic of Uzbekistan asserts that “democracy in the Republic of Uzbekistan shall be based upon common human principles, according to which the highest value shall be the human being, his life, freedom, honour, dignity and other inalienable rights.”
The official position is summarised in a memorandum “The measures taken by the government of the Republic of Uzbekistan in the field of providing and encouraging human rights” [1] and amounts to the following: the government does everything that is in its power to protect and to guarantee the human rights of Uzbekistan's citizens. Uzbekistan continuously improves its laws and institutions in order to create a more humane society. Over 300 laws regulating the rights and basic freedoms of the people have been passed by the parliament.
In Uzbekistan, legal mechanisms to achieve high legal culture of society across the country are developed and improving, where government agencies, educational institutions, national centers for human rights and civil society institutions are actively taking part.
According to Csaba Varga “The term ‘legal cultures’ stands for an operative and creative contribution, through social activity rooted in underlying social culture, to express how people experience legal phenomenon, how and into what they form it through their co-operation, how in what way they conceptualise it, an in what spritit, frame and purpose they make it the subject of theoretical representation and information.” [2]
The term 'political culture' is used in the field of social science. It refers to historically-based, widely-shared beliefs, feelings, and values about the nature of political systems, which can serve as a link between citizens and government.
Political culture is defined by the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences as the «set of attitudes, beliefs and sentiments that give order and meaning to a political process and which provide the underlying assumptions and rules that govern behavior in the political system». It encompasses both the political ideals and operating norms of a polity. Political culture is thus the manifestation of the psychological and subjective dimensions of politics. A political culture is the product of both the history of a political system and the histories of the members. Thus it is rooted equally in public events and private experience. [3]
Almond and Verba have listed four ideal types of political culture. They are:
‒ Parochial Political Culture. Where the people have no understanding of ‘he national political system, do not possess any tendency to participate in the input processes and have no consciousness of the output processes, such a type of political culture is called parochial political culture. African tribes and Eskimos fall in this category. Such types of people have no role to play in the political culture.
‒ Subject political Culture. This type of political culture is found in the subject countries and monarchies. There the people are aware of the governmental system whether they like it or not. They also know the role of the government regarding law making, enforcement of laws and tax collection etc. In this type of culture people are not taught to participate in the input functions. Sometimes they are not allowed to do so, so the people find it difficult how to influence the working of the political system.
‒ Participant political Culture. In this type of political culture people ore quite keen to participate in the political system and influence it’s working. They are always busy making reasonable demands on the political system and are involved in the making of decisions. They develop a particular attitude towards the political system. Political parties and pressure groups (interest groups) fall in this category and decide for themselves what role they can play.
‒ Political Sub-culture. It is not necessary that all the groups in habiting a particular country may be equally advanced; some may be more advanced, while others may be less advanced. Therefore those groups who are more advanced, develop a participatory culture while others may still retain subject or parochial-culture. This is due to the reason that in many countries of the world there are different ethnic groups. Differences in political culture amongst them develop due to the difference in education, political training, economic and social background. [4]
The Republic of Uzbekistan is a presidential constitutional republic, whereby the President of Uzbekistan is both head of state and head of government. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in the two chambers of the Supreme Assembly, the Senate and the Legislative Chamber. The judicial branch, is composed of the Supreme Court, Constitutional Court, and Higher Economic Court that exercises judicial power.
Bringing up a healthy generation that is well in every respect, raising their intellectual potential and protecting their rights and interests are priority areas of the state’s policy. The raising of young people’s political and legal culture was of important significance to Uzbekistan’s comprehensive development and that one of the important tasks before deputies was to further increase young people’s activeness in the process of implementation of democratic reforms in the country’s society and their political and legal knowledge.
Carrying out of opinion surveys on problems of the legal culture, public opinion on law, legal awareness of citizens are one of the main methods of detection of real picture of legal culture in the society and in the various population strata.
Education of law-abiding and comprehensive development of the younger generation is another important place in the system of legal education. Practical measures has taken organization of learning the provisions of Uzbekistan’s Constitution at all levels of education system, upbringing of legal consciousness, thinking and culture of the youth. Particularly, requirements to the adequate training programs were developed under the course «Study of Uzbekistan’s Constitution», approved textbooks and special literature for all stages of education, where was taken to account the age peculiarities of students, and teachers.
Enormous attention has been paid to the issues of preparation and increasing the qualifications of pedagogical cadres in this sphere and creation the necessary conditions, which requirements of modern standards, provision of literatures and methodological materials.
At the present the system of training the juridical cadres comprises Tashkent State Law University, Academy of Ministry of Internal Affairs, law faculties of universities, specialized colleges, as well as Center on Advanced Training of Lawyers under Ministry of Justice, High Courses of General Procurator’s Office. Preparation of juridical cadres with modern standards is one of the objectives of judicial-legal reforms, where successful realization ensures the protections of rights and legal interests of citizen.
Non-governmental organizations together with national human rights institutions have been working to raise awareness of the norms of international law, provide education in the field of protection of human rights, implement national action plans to implement the recommendations of UN treaty bodies, which creates conditions for the establishment and further improving the legal culture of population.
Young men and women who came from different regions of the country had an excellent opportunity to get acquainted with the activities of parliament, with issues of youth policy, to discuss the results of reforms carried out in our country, directly acquainted with the process of lawmaking, get detailed answers to questions relating to the execution of different state programs, to enhance legal and political culture.
The sides exchanged views on implementation of various normative-legal acts, in particular, the laws of the Republic of Uzbekistan “On prevention of child neglect and juvenile delinquency”, “On guarantees of the rights of the child”, “On limiting distribution and consumption of alcohol and tobacco products”, “On Advertising”, the Labor Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan and other documents.
Over the years of independent development, Uzbekistan achieved significant results in the formation and support of civil society. Implemented measures have laid a solid foundation to build a democratic state of law. More than 30 adopted legislative acts in the field of development of civil society suggest that Uzbekistan pays enormous attention to this direction.
References:
Embassy of Uzbekistan to the US, Press-Release: “The measures taken by the government of the Republic of Uzbekistan in the field of providing and encouraging human rights”, 24 October 2005.
Csaba Varga, Legal Traditions In Search for Families and Cultures of Law, 46 Acta Juridica Hungarica (2005).
International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, New York: Macmillen, 1968, Vol. 12, p. 218 (quoted in Jo Freedman, The Political Culture of the Democratic and Republican Parties (1986).
Almond, Gabriel A.; and Verba, Sidney 1963 The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations. Princeton Univ. Press.
