Special attention is being paid to ensuring a peaceful and tranquil life of the population and to forming a culture of law-abidingness and public safety as part of the large-scale reforms implemented in our country. In particular, completely new mechanisms and procedures for organizing work in the direction of public safety on the basis of the principle of “Serving the interests of the people” are introduced, and mutual purposeful cooperation of state bodies with public structures is established.

At the same time, various dangers and conflicts that are intensifying in the world, threats to the peace and tranquility of the country, pandemics, natural and man-made disasters impose the task of further improving their activities on the basis of the priority idea of “All efforts for human dignity” .

The place and role of crime prevention in the policy of combating crime is significantly increasing due to fundamental reforms in the field of justice and law in our country. A completely new system of crime prevention and fighting against crime was created, which meets the requirements of the time during the past period. “It is not only the threat of punishment and dealing with the consequences of offences, but the early prevention of illegal actions has become the most urgent task” .

It is known that ensuring public order and safety is recognized as one of the main functions of the state. In order to implement this function, various organizational and legal mechanisms are developed and implemented. In particular, the fact that thousands of political, cultural and sports mass events are held every year in our republic is a proof of the rule of peace and tranquility in our country.

Public safety is a state of protection of the vital interests of the individual, society and the state from the consequences of criminal and other illegal actions, social conflicts, natural disasters, earthquakes, epidemics, epizootics, man-made disasters, accidents and fires.

It should be noted that the analysis of the essence of the concepts of “public order” and “public safety” shows that although they are different from each other, their maintenance is interrelated and complementary, and it is very difficult to separate one from the other. Maintaining public order includes the concepts of ensuring personal safety of citizens and public safety at the same time. However, although the concepts of “personal security of citizens” and “public security” are related to the concept of “public order”, they differ from each other.

Today, the changes taking place in the political and social life of our country, especially the tasks related to the security and stability of our country, require a very serious approach, in which systematic, clear and legal division of the actions of the internal affairs bodies and their regular improvement is one of the issues awaiting its solution.

Over the past period, extensive work was carried out to improve the system of internal affairs bodies. In particular, significant work was done on the development and strengthening of the lower level of the internal affairs bodies, which was established to maintain public order in the neighborhoods, ensure the safety of citizens, prevent offenses and fight against crime.

In fact, the internal affairs bodies ensure the existence of peace and stability in the country, the rights and freedoms of citizens of independent Uzbekistan. A number of Decrees were adopted as a logical continuation of the ongoing reforms in the system of internal affairs bodies in order to more firmly guarantee the provision of life, freedom, honor, dignity and other inviolable rights of a person recognized as the highest value in Uzbekistan. For instance, Resolution No. PR-6196 of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan dated on March 26, 2021 “On measures to raise the quality of the activities of internal affairs bodies to a new level in the field of ensuring public safety and fighting crime” , Decree No. PD-5050 “On additional organizational measures to further improve the activities of internal affairs bodies in the field of ensuring public safety and fighting crime” on April 2, 2021 , Decree No. PD-5076 “On measures to introduce a qualitatively new system of training professional personnel for internal affairs bodies”   on April 15, 2021 are primarily examples.

These normative-legal documents adopted by the head of state define a number of tasks, such as improving the activities of internal affairs bodies, regulating them, preventing crimes, ensuring public safety and fighting crime.

As a result of the reforms that have been implemented over the past years to improve the activities of the internal affairs bodies, including its focus on maintaining public order and ensuring safety, first of all, the activities of all the sectoral services of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan and their local sub-structures have been improved based on the requirements of the time, their organizational structure and main tasks were clearly defined. In addition, the activities of the internal affairs bodies, in particular, its patrol-post service units, in order to maintain public order and security during public events, have been improved, and the responsibility of the employees serving in them has been increased. Along with all the sectoral services of internal affairs bodies, the system of patrol post and public order maintenance service, which is directly involved in the maintenance of public order and security, has been improved.

The material and technical base of field services, structural structures and military units, whose main task in the system of internal affairs bodies is to maintain public order and ensure safety, was improved, they were provided with modern motor vehicles, computers and communication tools, service weapons, and finally, the activities of internal affairs bodies, in particular, its activity in maintaining public order and ensuring its safety is being legally strengthened .

President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev mentioned at the extended meeting of the Security Council that, “Today, we are doing great work aimed at ensuring public order in our country based on the concept of “Safe city – safe country”. From this time onward, the National Guard is responsible and accountable for the implementation of the safe zone project in each city and region, and for maintaining public order, together with the Ministry of Internal Affairs” .

The practice shows that the National Guard is responsible for all events together with the Ministry of Internal Affairs. At public events, the internal affairs and National Guard officers ensure public order within their authority to fulfill the requirements set for this event, if the failure to comply with the legal requirements of the internal affairs officer to stop the offense, to submit documents for inspection, or the failure to comply with the legal requirements related to the maintenance of public order entails administrative responsibility.

In conclusion, it can be said that maintaining public order and ensuring the safety of citizens is one of the important issues in all countries, and the management of the structural units engaged in this task is carried out through various ways and methods. Each country has its own experience in this field, and their study and implementation in the system of ensuring public order and security in our country is one of the urgent issues today. Because, as the President of the country Sh.M.Mirziyoev noted, “in order to increase the effectiveness of internal affairs bodies, we should pay special attention to the task of wide application of new working methods and mechanisms, in particular, digital technologies, to practical activities, having studied the advanced experience of developed foreign countries in depth”.

Umidjon Qodirov,

Independent researcher of the Academy of the MIA

of the Republic of Uzbekistan, cand.of law sciences, associate professor