In a bustling neighborhood off Tashkent’s Mirobod Avenue, a sign dominates the side of a two-story home: “UN-SOS Human Rights Violation: Forced Eviction From Our Own Residence,” it reads in block letters.

Accompanying text in Uzbek and Russian pleads for President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to uphold constitutional guarantees to private property. The home’s owner, Dilmurod Mirusmanov, is embroiled in a years-long court battle to defend his property against seizure by Golden House Development, a private firm.

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Mirusmanov’s situation and others like it challenge Mirziyoyev’s promise to defend the rule of law and crackdown on widespread corruption.

They also beg questions about the power of the central government.

Tashkent and other major cities have undergone rapid development since Mirziyoyev took power in 2016. With his ascent, property seizures jumped – as did social unrest. In response, in 2019, a ministerial decree froze seizures. Yet developers who hold permits issued by local mayors (hokims) prior to the decree continue to receive support for evictions in the courts. This is despite the permits’ legally questionable basis; according to Articles 71 and 73 of the Housing Code (which predates the decree), only municipal housing and property required for state needs can be subject to seizure.

Indeed, in the case of one of Mirusmanov’s neighbors, the General Prosecutor declared the eviction order was illegal because the beneficiary was a private company. Nonetheless, Mirusmanov has lost at every level of the judicial system.

Activist Farida Charif, who runs a popular Facebook group dedicated to fighting evictions, told me this is common, even in cases where ombudsmen from the Ministry of Justice or MPs have supported the property owner’s legal case. In other instances, Tashkent residents describe winning or satisfactorily settling with developers, only to find the Supreme Court overturn those rulings.

Why the inconsistency in such legally similar cases?

Those involved in litigation insist judges are taking bribes from developers. Though difficult to prove, judicial corruption is often implied by behavior in court: For example, property owners describe how specific judges ignore their requests to see documents filed by developers, or offer only a few minutes to review them before issuing a decision.

Mirusmanov believes sweeteners won over the judges ruling in his case, which he has now appealed to the Supreme Court: “There’s no other explanation.”

Another litigant, Olga Abdullayeva, who has similarly been battling eviction for the past four years, recounted how one judge called her to a private meeting. It “never came to my mind to offer a bribe,” she said, only later realizing what the judge had meant about “coming to an agreement.” When issuing the ruling in her case, the same judge told her, “There is no reason to evict you, but I’m evicting you.”

The variation in judicial decision-making in these disputes echoes defense attorneys’ assessments of corruption in civil and economic cases more broadly. In 20 interviews with attorneys conducted in 2019, I found regular, but not universal, insistence that judges were being swayed by kickbacks – with a median estimate that 40 percent of all civil and economic cases are influenced by bribery.

Perhaps ironically, this suggests a much higher degree of judicial independence than is often attributed to Uzbekistan; corruption may no longer be systematic, but rather depends on individual judges’ willingness to take bribes. Though judicial independence is widely seen as a cornerstone of rule of law and has been a major goal of Mirziyoyev as he seeks foreign investment, this judicial independence without accountability impedes the development of courts as neutral arbiters.

As one property owner quipped, “[In Uzbekistan] our judges are independent – independent from the law.”

That independence can serve as a scapegoat facilitating corruption outside the courtroom. In the case of urban development, investigative journalists have traced direct links between developers and the Tashkent government: finding, for example, that the mayor has interests in major development projects. When some developers tried to forcibly evict people, property owners who sought help from the city administration were redirected to the courts – where judges then upheld the developers’ requests, leaving property owners without recourse. As one told me last month, “When they tell you to go to court, it’s like they tell you, ‘go to hell!’ […] only by a miracle can you achieve something.”

These cases not only highlight that increased judicial independence does not constitute a panacea for combating judicial corruption, they show the surprisingly limited central oversight of courts and local administrations.

In one particularly notable case, a local hokimiyat issued a permit for a developer to seize land belonging to one of Tashkent’s two synagogues, sparking international scandal and intervention by the Religious Affairs Committee. If this happened in Tashkent, where central control is strongest, what might be occurring in more distant regions? (Violent protests in Karakalpakstan earlier this month over constitutional changes cast the central government as, at best, out-of-touch.)

The implications as Uzbekistan seeks to revitalize its economy and attract foreign investment are troubling, suggesting that property rights violations and protest remain a bubbling problem. Moreover, activists have raised additional red flags over proposed changes to the constitution that would ease restrictions on eminent domain. In neighboring Kazakhstan, as I have documented, local officials use such seizures to enrich themselves. In China, they are the leading cause of protests.