Abstract

Historically a crucible of Islamic civilization, Uzbekistan underwent a profound transformation under Russian and Soviet colonization, resulting in the establishment of a secular legal order and the exclusion of Shari’a and customs from the public sphere. Following independence in 1991, Uzbekistan began moving away from socialism toward capitalism. At that time, the ruling class and intellectuals believed it appropriate to transplant norms from advanced legal systems in order to create new laws and regulations compatible with the emerging economic system. This tendency toward legal transplantation, often grounded in Eurocentric assumptions as well as the Soviet legacy, continues to shape contemporary lawmaking and has generated tensions in areas such as family, criminal, and civil law.

At the same time, post-independence Uzbekistan has experienced a significant Islamic revival within a predominantly Muslim society. Despite this, non-state normative orders, such as customary practices (adat) and Shari’a, remain marginalized within the formal legal system, where statutory law is dominant and exclusively applied by state courts. Prominent Uzbek jurists also emphasize that, as a secular state, statutory law takes precedence and that all residents are required to follow it exclusively. Even law school textbooks rarely mention the significance of religious rules and customs in legal practice, with legal education seemingly disconnected from societal realities. While existing scholarship on legal pluralism acknowledges the coexistence of state and non-state legal orders in Uzbekistan, it often stops at descriptive analysis and offers limited normative guidance on how to address this plurality within formal institutions.

This paper argues that the persistence of this hierarchy reflects not only legal positivism but also deeper patterns of epistemic and institutional dominance that can be understood through a decolonial lens. Drawing on decolonial theory, this paper proposes a shift from attempting to eliminate legal pluralism toward managing it. It advances a theoretical framework for incorporating forms of hybrid decision-making within state courts, aimed at recognizing the social significance of non-state norms while maintaining institutional coherence. In doing so, the paper contributes to ongoing debates on legal pluralism and decoloniality in post-Soviet contexts.