Speaker of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova chaired a scheduled parliamentary plenum with a 13-item agenda on 2 April.  

The MPs Malahat Ibrahimghizi, Siyavush Novruzov, Fazil Mustafa, Jeyhun Mammadov, Zahid Oruj, Shahin Seyidzade, Bahrouz Maharramov, Sadagat Valiyeva, Aydin Mirzazade and Aghil Abbas commented on a number of current issues and voiced their relevant suggestions while the matters of the day were discussed.

As for the proceedings in accordance with the agenda, they began with the hearing of the 2020 annual report by the Human Rights Commissioner (Ombudsman) Sabina Aliyeva, presented by the Ombudsman herself. Before she cut to the chase, Mrs Aliyeva congratulated our heroic Army with the triumphant Commander-in-Chief Ilham Aliyev at their head and the whole nation on the historic Victory in the Patriotic War. She said she bowed before the sacred spirit of our shahids and wished good health to the servicemen injured in combat.

The innovations introduced to the administration system to maintain public and political stability, reinforce both public control and counter-corruption as well as make the work done by the state authorities more efficient are bringing fruit already, be it in openness, transparency and supremacy of the law or in reliable protection of human rights, in the opinion of Mrs Aliyeva.

The past year had seen continued implementation of the programmes and projects targeted at the vulnerable sections of the society despite even certain difficulties posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The steps taken as instructed by both President Ilham Aliyev and First Vice President Mehriban Aliyeva factored importantly in mitigating the impact of the pandemic and the accompanying circumstances on the national economy as well as on social protection, employment and business activity in Azerbaijan, the Ombudsman said, adding that her Office, too, had been actively engaged in the counter-pandemic effort.

She told the House of her periodical visits to the parts of the country subjected to Armenian aggression to inspect the destroyed residential buildings and infrastructure during the 44-day Patriotic War. She had met with the families and friends of those killed and with the people either wounded or otherwise affected by those attacks. She had also been holding consultations with the local executive authorities so the detected problems would be solved.

Furthermore, fact-finding missions were despatched to the towns of Tovuz, Naftalan, Terter, Ganja and Barda in July 2020 and in the period since 27 September to asses, by the international legal standards, the damage caused by Armenia’s acts of vandalism and war crimes against civilians and to inform the international community accordingly. Besides, communications were sent to overseas organisations about the rude violation of the international laws, including the humanitarian standards, in treatment of the Azerbaijani POWs, and the tortures and humiliations to which they had been subjected. The Ombudsman of Azerbaijan drew up 8 appeals and 7 reports last year about the Armenian war crimes; 15 complaints including video proclamations were sent to the appropriate international institutions, other countries’ ombudsmen, national human rights organisations, embassies and religious entities.

The 27,500 applications that the Ombudsman received during the year were considered in the legally prescribed manner. The issues raised in those were examined jointly with the concerned state authorities; steps were taken to restore the damaged rights and opportune suggestions were made, too. The citizens’ right of appeal to the Ombudsman’s Office was maintained most effectively, which is especially notable as it was at the height of the pandemic, thanks to the start of the centralised Call Centre of the Office (the number 916) and the use of the opportunities provided by Facebook and Twitter alike.

Sabina Aliyeva made a point of voicing a number of her relevant suggestions as she was informing the House of the work done by her Office last year.

The chairman of the parliamentary Human Rights Committee Zahid Oruj took the floor once the report had been heard. He expressed his view of the document and put forth several proposals. The 2020 report and the work that the Ombudsman had done during 2020 were complimented after deliberations by First Deputy Chair of the Milli Majlis Ali Huseynli and the MPs Ali Masimli, Fazil Mustafa, Etibar Aliyev, Tahir Karimli, Hijran Huseynova, Sahib Aliyev, Elman Nasirov, Erkin Gadirli, Aghiya Nakhchivanli, Konul Nurullayeva, Ganira Pashayeva and Sabir Rustamkhanli. Several remarks and recommendations sounded towards further improvement of the work done by the Human Rights Commissioner.

Sabina Aliyeva answered MPs’ questions. Then, this agenda item was put on vote and the Milli Majlis noted the 2020 annual report of the Human Rights Commissioner.

The plenary sitting continued after an intermission.

The chairman of the Milli Majlis Defence, Security and Counter-Corruption Committee Ziyafet Askarov tabled the Bill on ratifying the inter-governmental accord between the Azerbaijan Republic and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan concerning co-operation in eliminating, curbing and mitigating emergency aftermaths. Mr Askarov referred to the bonds of brotherhood and friendship between our countries and said that the draft at issue was in the national interest of the Azerbaijani State.

During the exchange of opinions that followed, Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova brought up the subject of the Azerbaijani-Pakistani relations. She mentioned the two phone-calls with the Speaker of the Pakistani Parliament during the Patriotic War, adding that she had thanked the Pakistani Speaker on behalf of the Milli Majlis for Pakistan’s support to our country. As regards exchanged visits, Madame Chair remarked that a meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation was to take place in Pakistan in a few days and the Azerbaijani side had been invited, too. The Parliament of Azerbaijan would have been represented by a large delegation and an official visit to Pakistan would have taken place simultaneously. Alas, though, that meeting was put on hold because of the pandemic. One of our first post-pandemic visits will be to nowhere else but Pakistan, according to Mrs Gafarova who mentioned the planned mutual visits and the fact that the Pakistani side had been invited to Azerbaijan already.

The MPs Sevinj Fataliyeva, Fazail Agamali, Siyavush Novruzov and Ganira Pashayeva spoke to underscore that Pakistan had invariably been siding with our country and supporting Azerbaijan unequivocally during both the first and the second Garabagh Wars. Exchanged visits are important for a continued progress of the bilateral relations and friendship, the MPs stressed.

The vote that followed manifested the Parliament’s advocacy of the Azerbaijani-Pakistani Accord.

Next, three Bills were considered for the third reading. Those were introduced by Vugar Bayramov of the Milli Majlis Labour and Social Policy Committee, Kamal Jafarov of the Law Policy and State-Building Committee and Chairman of the Economic Policy, Industries and Enterprising Committee Tahir Mirkishili.

Further still, the Parliament passed in the third reading the draft amendments to the Labour Code and the Code of Administrative Offences of the Azerbaijan Republic as well as to the laws ‘On the Electrical Energy Industry’, ‘On Gas Supplies’, ‘On Water Supplies and Wastewater’, ‘On Regulation of Business Enterprise Checks and Protection of Enterprisers’ Interests’ and ‘On the Suspension of Business Enterprise Checks.’

Nizami Safarov presented the next agenda item dealing with draft amendments to the Law on the Judicial and Legal Council. He told the colleagues that the draft, which had arrived at the Milli Majlis as the legislative initiative of the President of Azerbaijan, envisaged a new provision in Article 8.2 of the Law introducing a monthly monetary allowance making 25 per cent of the salaries of the judges of the Supreme Court of the Azerbaijan Republic with the purpose of covering the representation expenses of the members of the Judicial and Legal Council. Besides, it is proposed in the draft to replace the word ‘remuneration’ with the wording ‘position salary’.

The MPs listened to the commentary on the amendment and passed the Bill.

The draft amendments to the Law ‘On the Protection of the Intellectual Property Rights and Anti-Piracy’ were tabled by First Deputy Chair of the Milli Majlis, Chairman of the parliamentary Law Policy and State-Building Committee Ali Huseynli. According to Mr Huseynli, a number of state authorities have been acting as public legal entities, which is also true of the Intellectual Property Agency as long as this realm is concerned. Public entities may open both treasury and special accounts subject to the resolution that the Cabinet of Ministers passed in 2020 because such entities collect loans and are engaged in other activities necessitating special accounts in certain cases. Therefore, the wording ‘a treasury account’ is to be edited to read ‘an account’ in the Law ‘On the Protection of the Intellectual Property Rights and Anti-Piracy’.

The MPs then voted for the Bill.

That was followed by deliberations on the draft amendments to the Law on Execution in keeping with the second-reading procedure. The House voted for the harmonising amendments in the second reading duly.

As regards the next five agenda items, they were all the Bills coming up before the MPs for the first reading.

A member of the parliamentary Committee for Law Policy and State-Building Kamal Jafarov remarked whilst describing the draft amendments to the Code of Administrative Offences in the first reading that the e-Agriculture data system had been incepted in our country to discourage corruption in agricultural lending as well as to make the appropriate state facilitation more accessible. The Bill at hand would serve the same purpose, MP Jafarov pointed out.

Sahib Aliyev commented on the item, after which the Bill was put on vote and approved in the first reading.

Then, Mrs Gafarova announced that the subsequent two agenda items had arrived at the Milli Majlis in one parcel and were interlinked substantively. Those were the draft amendments to the laws ‘On Perpetuating the Shahid Title and Concessions for the Shahid Families’ and ‘On Veterans’.

Deputy Chair of the Labour and Social Policy Committee Malahat Ibrahimghizi advised the House on both Bills in detail. She said that the state care of the shahid families and the veterans was one of the staple tasks set by the President of Azerbaijan and underlying the national social policy. This care is manifest at any given moment nowadays, MP Ibrahimghizi did not omit to emphasise. Continuing, she said that the proposed amendments were in line with the requirements of the time and represented a logical extension of the said policy. For example, it is intended to form a centralised database of shahids, shahid family members and handicapped and non-handicapped war veterans in order to address the pressing socio-economic, humanitarian, organisational and other tasks to be fulfilled in the liberated provinces of Azerbaijan. Such is the decision made by the Working Group that was formed pursuant to the presidential decree ‘On Establishing the Co-ordination HQ for Centralised Management of Issues in the De-occupied Territories of the Azerbaijan Republic’ dated 24 November 2020.

The main idea behind putting together a register of the people awarded the status of a shahid or a shahid family member is that of forming a unified database on the persons who either have those statuses or will be awarded either from now on. In addition, it is intended to collect and store the relevant data and to automate the search options. Such a register will eventually ensure online determination of the statuses of those applying to state authorities and proactive processing of their social welfare requests.

As regards the tabled amendments to the Law ‘On Veterans’, they, too, envisage creation of a digital register of war veterans within the e-information system of a body (organisation) appointed by the appropriate executive authority. The ultimate goal there is to form a centralised database of veterans.

The MPs Siyavush Novruzov, Tahir Karimli, Sahib Aliyev, Aydin Huseynov, Nigyar Arpadarai, Ali Masimli, Fazail Agamali, Elnur Allahverdiyev and Aghil Abbas spoke favourably of the Bills. Then, the first-reading Bills were voted in one by one.

Malahat Ibrahimghizi said as she was introducing the two latest items on the agenda that those were, again, the substantively interlinked first-reading Bill ‘On the Individual Accounting in the State Social Insurance System’ and draft amendments to the Labour Code. Mrs Ibrahimghizi remarked that the social-sector reforms implemented in our country had given birth to a centralised pension system containing the social insurance, individual accounting and pension scheme functions that are complementing each other. The system is organised so it functions to modern standards; an individual account is opened for each insurant to keep personified records of the compulsory social insurance premiums paid by him or her. There is also a mechanism in use to determine value terms of citizens’ pension entitlements relying specifically on the information about such accounts. The continued reforms in this area call for a more robust but also better facilitated system of individual accounts; in addition, it is necessary to eliminate outdated stipulations from the relevant legislation.

The amendment of several articles of the Law ‘On the Individual Accounting in the State Social Insurance System’ requires also corresponding amendment of the Labour Code. The amendments the purpose of which is to reinforce the social welfare will ensure flexible access to the individual accounting data whilst allowing reduction of extra costs.

The MPs Eldar Guliyev and Etibar Aliyev commented on both Bills and shared their views. Then, both Bills were put on vote and approved in the first reading one after another.

And with that, the scheduled plenary sitting of the Milli Majlis was over.

The Press and Public Relations Department
The Milli Majlis