In most countries, the courtroom is a place where truth is uncovered and justice is served. In Uzbekistan, according to veteran criminal defense lawyer, Sergei Mayorov, it is a place where justice is merely performative and masks its very absence —verdicts are often written long before the trial even begins.

Mayorov, speaking in a rare and revealing interview with UzNews titled “Адвокат дьявола: совесть узбекского правосудия” (“The Devil’s Advocate: The Conscience of Uzbek Justice”), offers a harrowing insider account of what it’s like to defend clients in a system rigged from the outset. With decades of experience in high-profile criminal cases, he is not only one of the few remaining defense lawyers willing to take on politically sensitive cases, but perhaps the only one willing to publicly name the system’s core feature: fear.

His words do not just describe a broken system. They reveal one designed to function exactly as it does — not to protect the innocent or punish the guilty, but to ensure that obedience, not law, governs the outcome.

“One lawyer,” he says, “stands against three institutions: the investigator, the prosecutor, and — unfortunately — the judge.”

This isn’t metaphorical. Mayorov describes how these three arms of the criminal process operate in sync to deliver a predetermined result. He has watched judges browse their phones during hearings, because they already know the verdict that will be delivered. He has submitted motions with clear legal grounds, only for them to be denied without justification. In case after case, he has seen fair trial guarantees ignored, defense rights violated, and justice reduced to theater.

“During one trial,” he recalls, “I demanded a cross-examination of a key witness. The judge replied, ‘He was already questioned during the investigation — there is no need to repeat it.’ But this is not just a procedural error. It is a complete disregard for the right to challenge evidence. It means the judge has decided the case without hearing the defense.”

The system’s dysfunction isn’t limited to apathy. Mayorov outlines deliberate efforts by investigators to deny him access to clients, often under false pretenses — “the investigator isn’t here,” “the file is being reviewed,” “come back next week” — all excuses to isolate suspects and pressure them into confessions. And these are not confessions extracted through reason or law, but often through torture, psychological manipulation, or outright fabrication.

One of the most chilling examples Mayorov recounts involves a client sentenced to life imprisonment for a double murder he did not commit. According to Mayorov, the man had a solid alibi. The forensic evidence was questionable, the investigation, rushed and sloppy. But the case had media attention, and the authorities needed a conviction. So they tortured co-defendants, forced contradictory statements, and secured a sentence.

“He’s still in prison,” Mayorov says. “He didn’t kill anyone. But they needed to close the case, and that was more important than the truth.”

In another case, he defended twelve military officers accused of treason in 2010 — a politically charged trial that bore all the hallmarks of a show trial. Eleven of the men were eventually acquitted after years of imprisonment. One remains behind bars.

“Why is he still there? Because if they acquit him too, it means the entire case was fabricated. And then they’d have to admit who was responsible — the investigators, the prosecutors, the judges. The system can’t afford that.”

Mayorov is not simply recounting anecdotes. He is describing a structure in which incentives are aligned to suppress dissent and reward conformity. Judges, he says, are not independent. They are administrators — civil servants who fear being sidelined if they show too much autonomy. “These are not judges,” he says bluntly. “They are officials carrying out the state’s will.”

What makes his testimony even more sobering is his critique of the legal profession itself. Far from being a counterweight to state power, many defense lawyers are, in his view, part of the same machine. He estimates that a large number are former state officials — prosecutors, investigators, even judges — who enter private practice with deeply ingrained loyalty to the institutions they once served.

“They never learned to defend people,” he says. “They spent their careers defending the state. Now they put on the defense lawyer’s robe, but the mindset remains. They still look at the accused as if they are criminals and see the prosecutor as their ally.”

He tells of clients who have been pressured to drop him as their lawyer. In one case, a young man was prosecuted for a quote in a blog post — a religious opinion he had shared, without references to violence or incitement. The authorities offered him a deal: drop Mayorov as your lawyer, and you’ll get a lighter sentence. He refused. They gave him the maximum sentence: seven and a half years in prison.

In another case, a blogger who had been targeted for criticizing Uzbekistan’s education system, was also pressured to fire Mayorov. Again, his client refused. Again, he received the harshest possible sentence.

“They don’t want lawyers like me in the courtroom,” he says. “Not because I break rules, but because I insist they follow the law.”

Even so, there are moments — brief and fragile — where the system behaves differently. Mayorov recounts two recent cases where judges acquitted defendants despite clear pressure from the prosecutor general’s office. In one, eleven people were cleared of all charges; in another, fifteen. These rare flashes of integrity, he argues, show that reform is possible. But they are rare.

“If a judge follows the law,” he says, “he risks his career. That’s the problem. Until judges are truly independent — until they no longer fear retaliation — justice will remain an illusion.”

The most dangerous part of this system, Mayorov warns, is not the corruption or the repression. It is the normalization — the gradual acceptance by lawyers, judges, and citizens that this is simply how things work.

“The worst thing,” he says, “is not when the judge ignores you. It’s when your colleagues stop filing motions because they believe it’s useless. That’s the moment the system wins — when even defense lawyers lose faith in defense.”

Yet Mayorov has not lost faith. He continues to defend, to appeal, to raise objections, even when the outcome seems foregone. Not because he believes he can win every case, but because silence would make him complicit.

“I file motions even if I know they will be rejected,” he says. “I ask for evidence to be excluded even when the judge won’t listen. Because someone has to insist that the law matters — even when the court pretends it doesn’t.”

In today’s Uzbekistan, Sergei Mayorov may be a solitary figure. But his voice — calm, measured, and relentless — is perhaps the clearest moral indictment of the country’s legal architecture. And his defiance is a reminder that even in a hollowed-out legal system, integrity still has power.

When the law becomes a tool for repression, the act of insisting on its true meaning becomes revolutionary. In that sense, Sergei Mayorov is not just a defense lawyer. He is what the title of the interview calls him: the conscience of Uzbek justice.

This article is based on an interview published by UzNews on July 27, 2025.

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