President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a law on March 13th that tightens the responsibility for violating fire safety regulations. The law increases fines for violations in various settings such as enterprises, institutions, organizations, public places, warehouses, dormitories, residential buildings, as well as during the design, construction, and reconstruction of relevant objects.
For a first offense, fines for individuals will increase from 0.1-1 BRV (34-340 thousand sum) to 1-3 BRV (0.34-1.02 million sum), and for officials from 1-3 BRV to 3-7 BRV (1.02-2.38 million sum). In case of a repeated violation within a year, the fine amount will rise to 3-5 BRV (1.02-1.7 million sum) for individuals and 7-15 BRV (2.38-5.1 million sum) for officials. Currently, sanctions for this offense are set at 1-3 BRV and 3-7 BRV, respectively.
The fine for violations leading to a fire will increase from 3-5 BRV to 5-7 BRV (1.7-2.38 million sum) for individuals, and from 7-10 BRV to 15-20 BRV (5.1-6.8 million sum) for officials. If a fire occurs in a residential area due to negligence or violation of fire safety rules not resulting in harm to people's health or damage to others' property, the offender will be exempt from punishment.
A penalty is introduced for violations of fire safety requirements in forests that result in fires. In such cases, individuals must pay 10-15 BRV (3.4-5.1 million sum), and officials 20-25 BRV (6.8-8.5 million sum). Additionally, the fines that fire inspectors of different levels can impose are increased. Administrative violations of fire safety by individual entrepreneurs, their employees, officials, and companies during business activities will no longer be handled in criminal courts but will fall under the jurisdiction of state fire supervision authorities.
The law will come into force on June 15th.
