Law on Farming Additional grounds for cancelling a lease for farms are set out in article 32 of the law On Farming, which states that the farm may be liquidated only under specific circumstances. These include voluntary refusal from the lease rights, irrational use of land, seizure of land in a prescribed manner, failure to restore farming activity within three years after the transfer, voluntary termination of the land lease, bankruptcy, or death of the leaseholder etc. In addition, a land lease may be terminated if the land plot is required for state and public needs and if mandatory membership of the Council of Farmers, Dehkan Farms and Owners of Farmstead Lands of Uzbekistan is terminated.28 Presidential decree no. PF-6243 The presidential decree no. PF-6243, dated 8 June 2021, states that from 1 August 2021, the authority to ‘establish, recognise, change, and cancel the rights to land plots by local state authorities of districts and cities’ is cancelled.29 This decree is significant in that it prohibits the right of hokims of cities and districts to revoke the allocation or cancel land lease agreements as of 1 August 2021. Nevertheless, there are numerous cases where farmers who have not fulfilled their cotton quotas have been forced by district and city hokims to submit a “voluntary” application to terminate their land lease under threat of penalty. Government decree no. 14 Government decree no. 14, of 9 January 2019, is the third in the last ten years and expands the list of conditions under which land allocated to farms and other agricultural enterprises can be optimised and ultimately seized.30 The decree also significantly expands the scope through which hokims can cancel land leases, and effectively removes the requirement of a court order. However, this decree contradicts the Land Code and the law On Farming. Based on this decree, hokims have allegedly secured so-called “voluntary” applications from farmers under threat of penalty to return their land to the state, which has resulted in thousands of farmers “agreeing” to give up their land and livelihoods. Despite legislation, decisions made by government officials on an arbitrary and illegal basis persist. On 29 January 2024, Khairulla Bozorov, the hokim of Ferghana region, allocated land to a recently established company. It has been two-and-a-half years since the authority of hokims to allocate land was terminated. Nevertheless, Bozorov allocated the ‘Youth Lake’ site under the guise of ‘buildings and structures’, incorrectly citing a presidential decree. The decision was cancelled after publication in the media, but no legal action was taken against the hokim.31 In January 2024, the hokim of Kasan district in Kashkadarya region, Asrol Boykoraev, adopted an order to reallocate the land plots of 48 farms to the state reserve, arbitrarily terminating the land leases of the affected farmers.32 The action violates national legislation and two presidential decrees, and although the order was cancelled a few days later, following widespread media coverage, it demonstrates the vulnerability of farmers to the abuse of power by local officials. A False Sense of Legality 17