The Milli Majlis Labour and Social Policy Committee held a hearing ‘Improving the Legislation on Disability Certification and Rehabilitation’ on 29 April with the attendance of First Deputy Chair of the Milli Majlis Ali Huseynli, chairs and deputy chairs of six parliamentary committees, MPs and representatives of the concerned ministries and organisations.

Chairman of the Labour and Social Policy Committee Musa Guliyev opened the session. He emphasised the successful implementation of social reforms in the country. The two reform parcels consisting of almost 30 decrees and orders of the President of Azerbaijan made certain that the minimum salary, minimum pension, average monthly pension and average monthly retirement pension have risen by 116, 82, 60 and 54 per cent respectively.

The hearing participants were told that the social aid had covered more than 20,000 people in the post-war period; that included 7,303 members of 2,859 shahids’ households given social payments. Besides, 9,000 people were provided with psychological aid, more than 500 gazies benefited from rehabilitation services, 510 handicapped war veterans were given 2,370 means of rehabilitation and 5,300 shahid family members and gazies were encompassed by self-employment programmes.

Since the rights of the people with disabilities are regulated by the national legislation, it is imperative that the disability certification is done right, according to Mr Guliyev. The three years past have seen fine results in terms of discouraging fake disability status cases, reversing the already-given unfounded certificates of disability and keeping the certification transparent and firmly within the boundaries drawn by law. The purposeful efforts reduced the preliminary disability retirement cases from 26,326 by 50 per cent to 13,276 persons on record.

Referring to the reality of the day, the Committee Chairman spoke of the need of appropriate legislative changes and adoption of new disability criteria.

The attending Minister for Labour and Social Protection of the Population Sahil Babayev stressed the importance of keeping disability assessments transparent and objective. He also told the hearing participants of the action taken to curb groundless designations. The minister said, with a reference to the Q121 outcomes, that the consideration of repeated disability term-extension applications revealed that about 30 per cent of all the applicants had had unjustifiable certifications. Detection and termination of false and unfounded disability designations will be the guiding principle from now on therefore, he added.

The Minister told the MPs in detail of the disability appraisals done on the Patriotic War veterans wounded in action. As many as 405 gazies have been certificated already; this process goes on. According to the Minister, 17 gazies have already been provided with high-tech prosthetics while 105 others are taking stationary treatment at the Ministry’s rehabilitation clinics and more than 1,200 have been supplied with psychological aid.

Mr Babayev went further to inform the hearing participants of the draft new disability appraisal criteria, which, he noted, contained certain innovations. One of those is the proposed replacement of the rather tight set of three disability degrees and one category of those with special health needs with a broader classification spectrum set to use a percentage range. Then, the Minister suggested that the effective regulatory bylaws should be adjusted to the new criteria. He also told of a set of draft legislative amendments to that end.

First Vice-Speaker and Chairman of the Milli Majlis Committee for Law Policy and State-Building Ali Huseynli, Chairman of the Human Rights Committee Zahid Oruj, Deputy Chair of the Family, Women’s and Children’s Affairs Committee Jala Aliyeva, Deputy Chairman of the Culture Committee Fazil Mustafa, Deputy Chairman of the Health Committee Rashad Mahmudov, Deputy Chair of the Labour and Social Policy Committee Malahat Ibrahimghizi and the MPs Ilham Mammadov and Mashhur Mammadov commented on the current situation in the disability certification and rehabilitation and on streamlining the legislation. They also voiced the relevant suggestions of their own.

Sahil Babayev clarified some topics brought up by the MPs then.

Further comments were made by Deputy Chair of the Board of the State Agency for the Compulsory Medical Insurance Nigyar Bayramova, Deputy Health Minister Rahim Aliyev, Chairman of the Central Medical Commission of the Defence Ministry Azad Abdullayev and Counsellor to the Minister for Labour and Social Protection Anar Bayramov.

Chairman of the Labour and Social Policy Committee Musa Guliyev shared the pertaining suggestions of his committee toward the end of the hearings.

The Press and Public Relations Department
The Milli Majlis