ORGANIZATIONAL AND LEGAL ISSUES OF EARLY TERMINATION OF THE POWERS OF LOCAL COUNCIL DEPUTIES

Аннотация

The early termination of the mandate of a local council deputy lies at the intersection of two constitutional principles: the stability of a mandate conferred by voters and the accountability of the representative to those who elected him. In Uzbekistan the applicable rules are dispersed across the Constitution, the Law on State Power in the Localities, the Law on the Status of a Deputy of a Regional, District and City Kengash of People’s Deputies, the Law on the Recall of a Deputy, and the Electoral Code. This article examines the organizational and legal problems that follow from that fragmentation. Applying formal legal analysis together with a comparative survey of Russian, Kazakh, Polish and German regulation, the study classifies the statutory grounds of early termination into four groups, reconstructs the procedure according to the subject that initiates it, and identifies five defects: an open ended clause allowing a Kengash to strip a mandate for conduct dishonouring the title of deputy; the absence of any voter initiative in the recall procedure; an undefined standard of systematic non performance of duties; the dispersal of incompatibility rules across several acts without a unifying criterion; and the absence of an institution of suspension of powers. The article proposes consolidating the grounds within a single article, introducing a voters’ initiative, defining incompatibility through a functional test, and replacing discretionary termination with judicially reviewable procedures.