From A Fine-Only Model to Differentiated Sanctions: Proportionality of Administrative Penalties for Customs Offences in Uzbekistan

Purpose. This article assesses whether the penalties for administrative customs offences in Uzbekistan comply with the constitutional principle of proportionality and substantiates legislative proposals to secure that compliance. Design/methodology/approach. Using formal-legal, systemic-structural, comparative and statistical methods, the study examines the 27 customs-related articles of the Code on Administrative Liability, three draft laws, customs authorities' case statistics for 2021–2025, the legislation of the European Union, the Russian Federation and China, and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union. Findings. In every customs-related article of the Code the principal penalty is a fine, which prevents the individualisation of penalties for procedural and first-time violations. In 2025, 99.9 per cent of the cases decided by customs authorities fell under four offences recorded through an automated information system and punished by fixed fines. A pending bill would cut the nominal total of fines by roughly one-third but would distort the relative severity of sanctions for comparable conduct. Originality/value. The article substantiates introducing the administrative warning as an alternative penalty in Articles 227 and 227¹², together with objective criteria for its use; proposes two criteria for identifying duplicative offences; and argues for making confiscation optional for first-time non-declaration and for creating liability for failure to submit advance electronic information. It shows that reforming the penalty system means differentiation rather than mere mitigation — a finding relevant to other post-Soviet jurisdictions that inherited a fine-only model.