Prior to the commencement of the Milli Majlis extraordinary session plenum, Speaker Sahiba Gafarova informed the assembly of the Azerbaijani parliamentary delegation’s visit to Hungary that had begun on 28 June and ended on 30 June.

Sahiba Gafarova reminded the MPs that Hungary is a member of the European Union, the NATO and the other European organisations. This country, whilst falling back upon the historic roots of its own, is giving its foreign politics a special focus on fostering relations with the Turkic-speaking states and entering into the Turkic World. Hungary is an observer in the Turkic Council, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Turkic-Speaking States and other integrative entities of the Turkic-speaking countries.

As regards the relationship between Azerbaijan and Hungary, it has the nature of strategic partnership; the bilateral co-operation is marked by dynamic growth with both sides taking the utmost care of deepening the interaction between them.

The official visit of the parliamentary delegation of Azerbaijan had also made vocal the significance that President Ilham Aliyev of the Azerbaijan Republic is giving to the progress of our relations with Hungary.

Madame Speaker went on to say that our delegation had called at the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Budapest on the first day of the visit, on 28 June, that is. The memory of the Great Leader Heydar Aliyev was honoured; flowers were put at his bust installed on the premises. Besides, the delegation had a meeting with Azerbaijan’s Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador to Hungary Vilayat Guliyev to exchange opinions about opportune subjects with him.

On 29 June, the delegation joined the ‘The Year 2021 – the Nizami Ganjavi Year’ event at the Budapest Representation Office of the Turkic Council. At it, Head of the Turkic Council’s Budapest Office János Hóvári and Deputy State Secretary of the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs András Baranyi emphasised in their respective speeches at the conference that Azerbaijan is a fraternal state and strategic partner to Hungary and that the co-operation going on under the auspices of the Turkic Council is contributing to the progress of our bipartite relations.

The Chair of the Milli Majlis said in her speech at the same event that all the member states of the Council had despatched their representatives to Budapest and that their presence there was yet another token of the close relations amongst our peoples.

 It was said also that the Turkic Council is working on building a strategic vision. The ‘Turkic World Vision- 2040’ is a roadmap using which we can deepen our co-operation in every area and secure a yet brighter future for the Turkic World.

Co-ordinating combat against international terrorism, separatism, extremism and trans-border crime is another important task that the Turkic Council has put on its agenda, Mrs Gafarova said there. She proceeded to say the sincere thanks, on her own behalf and on that of the Milli Majlis of Azerbaijan, to the Turkic Council member states’ governments and peoples for their support to the fair and just stance of Azerbaijan during the Patriotic War that had been waged in order to end the thirty years’ occupation of Azerbaijan’s lands by Armenia.

Going further at the plenum, Sahiba Gafarova told the House that she had met with Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban on 29 June.

First, PM Orban thanked the people of Azerbaijan on the victory in the 44-day Patriotic War and on having liberated its own lands. PM Orban said that delegations coming from Azerbaijan were ever special guests of the Hungarian people and state. Hungary considers the furtherance of its relations with the friendly state of Azerbaijan to be of outstanding importance; the current political, economic, cultural and humanitarian collaboration of the two states is on the increase, according to PM Orban.

The Chair of the Milli Majlis touched on the common historical roots of our peoples and said that Azerbaijan, too, found it to be particularly important to foster the co-operation with Hungary, one of the states that were the first to recognise its independence. Madame Speaker the people and state of Hungary for the support to the just stance of our country – the support that was demonstrated during the 44-day Patriotic War, and for the Hungarian assistance to the ANAMA in its mine-sweeping efforts in the de-occupied provinces.

On that same day, there was a meeting with members of the inter-parliamentary friendship group with Azerbaijan. There, both parliaments’ friendship groups’ members had a useful exchange of opinions about the co-operation between the two legislatures. It was pointed out that the contacts of the parliaments mattered a lot in the continued strengthening of the inter-state relations, with a role of special importance assigned to the inter-parliamentary friendship groups and no other. It was also mentioned with pleasure that the MPs of both countries maintained close co-operation in the international organisations and gave each other the needed backing.

Our delegation arrived at the Rehabilitation Centre for Disabled Children of the László Baranyi Institute on 30 June. One large block of the Centre had been built with the assistance of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation.

Sahiba Gafarova noted whilst talking to the Centre personnel that the creation of such a Centre with the help of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation went to show the high ebb of the relations amongst the two friendly nations. Named in honour of the independent Azerbaijani State’s founder and maker, our national leader Heydar Aliyev and helmed by the Azerbaijan Republic’s First Vice President Mrs Mehriban Aliyeva, the Foundation is famed for its numerous and fundamental charitable and humanist projects undertaken not only in Azerbaijan but also abroad. The versatile philanthropic activities of the Foundation are met with high appreciation invariably.

A memorable gift was given to the Centre on behalf of the Milli Majlis.

Also on the last day of June, our delegation went to the Diplomatic Academy Hungary where Mrs Gafarova had a meeting with Hungary’s State Secretary and President of the Diplomatic Academy Orsolya Pacsay-Tomassich first and delivered a speech at the conference at the Diplomatic Academy then. Mrs Gafarova informed the conference participants of the historical path covered by Azerbaijan and of our millennia-old statehood traditions.

High standards are being set by the bilateral relations between the two peoples who share the historical roots and have the similar historical fates; the state leaders’ reciprocal visits, their meetings and the documents they have signed to date have laid a firm foundation for the future progress of our co-operation, said Madame Speaker who also broached the inter-parliamentary interaction in her address.

The Chair of the Milli Majlis and the accompanying delegation met with Chairman of the National Assembly of Hungary László Kövér on the same day.

The two speakers talked about the importance of parliamentary diplomacy for solution of the problems that their countries encountered and stressed that our MPs co-operated with success under the aegis of the international parliamentary organisations as well as helped each other protect the interests of their respective countries. The friendship groups active in the legislatures of Hungary and Azerbaijan are making the tremendous contribution to the evolution of the bilateral relations, the speakers agreed.

Returning to the current plenum of the Milli Majlis, Sahiba Gafarova emphasised in her address at it that the idea that Armenia had held the territories of Azerbaijan under occupation had been the unifying thread of all the meetings held in Hungary, that is, with PM Victor Orban, National Assembly Chairman László Kövér, the members of the group for inter-parliamentary friendship with Azerbaijan, at the Turkic Council Budapest Office and in the speech delivered at the Hungarian Diplomatic Academy. That occupation had hindered regional development and integration in the Caucasus, to put it mildly. Regrettably, the four resolutions of the UN Security Council that demanding immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of Armenian troops from the territories of Azerbaijan they had invaded had remained on paper for three decades until, finally, Azerbaijan ensured their implementation and made its national territory whole again relying solely on the military and political capacity of its own.

It had also been said in Hungary that large-scale restoration and rebuilding had been started in those lands. It is to be deplored that Armenia is refusing to release the maps of the minefields located in our freed lands, the consequence being that Azerbaijani servicemen and civilians trip those Armenian mines and are either killed or wounded by the explosions. The Chair of the Milli Majlis had reiterated her urge to the international community to make Armenia give up the minefield maps.

Going further, Madame Chair had told of the different provocations of which Armenia would not stop short; she told of that state’s attempts to make the terrorists apprehended in Garabagh after the conflict’s settlement look as ‘prisoners of war’.

Azerbaijan is using its sovereign right to delimit its borders with Armenia, but Armenia approaches this process in a most unhelpful manner and tries to mislead the global community with false proclamations. Madame Speaker noted in this connexion that Azerbaijan was adamant it would honour all the provisions of the Trilateral Statement of 10 November 2020 any obstacle notwithstanding.

Going next at the plenum of the Milli Majlis, its agenda was approved and the issues du jour began to be discussed.

First Deputy Chair of the Milli Majlis and Chairman of the Law Policy and State-Building Committee Ali Huseynli recalled his having been on the trip to Hungary as the leader of the concerned friendship group and highlighted this visit’s impact on the continued progress of the current relations of the two countries.

First Vice Speaker proceeded to remark that the professional holiday of the security and military agencies was being in a special environment in Azerbaijan this time: our lands had been wrought from the occupiers’ hold and it is noteworthy that the military and the security agencies had had the most immediate part in that process. Today is the professional holiday of the Azerbaijani Police. The Azerbaijani Police had taken part in the Patriotic War professionally and courageously just as they had done in the Garabagh War I. hundreds of police officers had fallen or become gazis in battle and had served the Azerbaijani statehood  loyally.

The Police of Azerbaijan demonstrated their self-forgetfulness in the cause of protecting the Motherland in the Garabagh War I in the 1990s, too. At the next stage, that is, upon the Great Leader’s return to power in 1993, the Azerbaijani Police had paid an exceptional role in restoring the public and political stability in the country. An attempted coup was averted successfully in 1994-1995; that was followed with the countering of organised crime effectively and the said public and political order had been restored in the country.

Ali Huseynli congratulated the Internal Affairs Authority personnel with their professional day speaking on behalf of both the leadership and the members of the Milli Majlis. Our lands are free; we could witness the professionalism in the work done by the Azerbaijani police during the state of martial law. Mr Huseynli said confidently that the Police would continue serving the policy of the President and the people of the country, our state successfully from now on as well.

All the MPs were joining in the congratulations, Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova said to that.

The committee chairmen Musa Guliyev and Zahid Oruj and the MPs Sahib Aliyev, Azer Badamov, Razi Nurullayev, Malahat Ibrahimghizi, Elshan Musayev, Eldeniz Salimov, Bahrouz Maharramov and Ramin Mammadov who spoke next all congratulated police officers on their professional holiday. They also commented on a number of other current issues and brought up the problems that worry the electors.

Madame Chair told the House then that the agenda contained ten items the first four of which were the Bills to be tabled for the third reading. The items 1 and 2 of the agenda had arrived at the Milli Majlis in a letter from Mr President and were akin substance-wise. Those were the draft amendments to laws ‘On Retirement Pensions’ (Item 1) and ‘On the Rights of Disabled Persons’ (Item 2).

It was Chairman of the parliamentary Committee for Labour and Social Policy Musa Guliyev who shared the information about both agenda items. He said that the case in point in either was reinforcement of the social protection of the citizens. It follows from the amendments that if a citizen’s assigned disability period expires but the disabled status is reaffirmed within the next six months, the new assignment will be made effective from the expiry date of the previous period.

The Bills were put on vote and passed in the third reading one after another after the relevant thoughts of MP Gudrat Hasanguliyev had been heard duly.

The third and fourth items on the agenda, too, had come in one parcel from Mr President and, too, were interconnected content-wise, Speaker Sahiba Gafarova said afterwards.

First, Chairman of the Labour and Social Policy Musa Guliyev informed the House of the draft amendments to the Law ‘On Retirement Pensions’, which, he mentioned, had been drawn up with the purpose of strengthening the social protection in the country. Their essential is in that if a public legal entity is established in lieu of a state agency and so such an agency staff’s civil service is discontinued, those of them who have 13 years’ Civil Service track record and only 2 years till they reach the retirement age will be paid their pensions as retired Civil Servants. That is to say, they are being granted two extra years that will be added to their actual track records. Mr Guliyev also commented on the ideas and proposals that had been made during the second reading of this document.

Then, the Bill was adopted in the third reading.

First Deputy Chair of the Milli Majlis and Chairman of the Law Policy and State-Building Committee Ali Huseynli tabled the draft amendments to the Civil Service Law, saying that they were of a harmonising nature and, as a matter in fact, stipulated the same provisions that were contained in the Bill containing amendments to the Retirement Pensions Law.

That Bill, too, was approved in the third reading.

Speaker Sahiba Gafarova told the MPs that the remaining six items on the agenda dealt with the Bills lined up for the second reading and the first two of them Mr President had submitted to the Milli Majlis in one parcel. They were intricately connected substantively as well.

Subsequently, First Deputy Chair of the Milli Majlis and Chairman of the Law Policy and State-Building Committee Ali Huseynli tabled the set of draft amendments to the Labour, Civil Procedural, Family, Civil, Tax, Criminal Procedural and Administrative Procedural Codes of the Azerbaijan Republic, to the Code of Administrative Offences and to the Laws ‘On the Social Insurance’, ‘On the Medical Insurance’, ‘On the State Duty’, ‘On the Judicial and Law Council’ and ‘On the Administrative Proceedings’. Mr Huseynli also tabled the draft amendments to the Mediation Law. He gave overviews of both Bills.

The aforementioned amendments to the codes and laws are motioned in connexion with the enforcement of the Mediation Law which, by the way, had come into effect yesterday, Mr Huseynli continued. As for the amendments at issue, they, too, are bound to come into force as of 1 July though they are amidst the second-reading procedure right now. Therefore, those provisions (regarding the amendments being in effect as of 1 July) had been deleted so that the amendments would take legal effect from the date of their signing by Mr President, according to Mr Huseynli. In addition, certain technical corrections have been made in the documents. By and large, the amendments are set to make the mediation institute stronger.

The MPs Gudrat Hasanguliyev, Etibar Aliyev, Sadagat Valiyeva and Sahib Aliyev shared their views of the Bills. The responses by Ali Huseynli to them were followed by both Bills being voted through the second reading.

Next, the House looked at the draft amendments to the Laws ‘On the Civil Service’, ‘On Serving in the Prosecution Authorities’, ‘On the Diplomatic Service’, ‘On Serving in the Justice Authorities’ and ‘On Serving in the Emergency Situations Authorities’ as well as to the Customs Authorities Service Charter enacted by the Law of the Azerbaijan Republic No 768-IQ dated 7 December 1999, the State Tax Authorities Service Charter enacted by the Law of the Azerbaijan Republic No 141-IIQ dated 12 June 2001, the Azerbaijan Republic Internal Affairs Authorities Service Charter enacted by the Law of the Azerbaijan Republic No 168-IIQ dated 29 June 2001 and the Migration Authorities Service Charter enacted by the Law of the Azerbaijan Republic No 930-IIIQ dated 4 December 2009. The overview was given, again, by Ali Huseynli who told the House that the document envisaged cancellation of repeated trial periods and of track record reaffirmation when a civil servant travelled from the special civil service to the civil service per se and back.

The Bill was approved in the second reading after the assembly had heard out the MPs Fazil Mustafa and Elnur Allahverdiyev.

As Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova said subsequently, the next order of business was about the three agenda items representing separate draft amendments  to the Civil Procedural Code, to the State Duty Law and to the Administrative Procedural Code. Those matters had been scheduled to emerge as the four last items on the agenda of the previous plenary sitting. There had been two draft laws containing amendments to the Administrative Procedural Laws, but it was decided eventually to amalgamate them to make one document that could be submitted for consideration of the MPs.

Certain thoughts regarding the amendments to the Civil Procedural Code had been voiced at the preceding plenum; considering those, the parliamentary committees for Law Policy and State-Building and for Economic Policy, Industries and Enterprising held a joint meeting and hosted an extensive public discussion of the draft yesterday. Representatives of the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Justice and the Bar Association had been invited to sit in. The questions asked previously were clarified; proposals concerning the subject-matter were heard and, following that discussion, it was decided to raise the Bill with the Milli Majlis at the next plenary sitting.

First Vice Speaker and Chairman of the Law Policy and State-Building Committee Ali Huseynli commented that yesterday’s combined meeting of the parliamentary committees held as a public discussion had proven highly fruitful. The MPs had voiced interesting suggestions. In the end, an accommodation had been reached with the legislative initiative subject about the matters that had aroused the concerns of the law community in general and of solicitors in particular. One of the biggest issues had been about Article 174, the sub-paragraph 174.5 of which is now in a new edition incorporating solicitors’ suggestions.

Going further, Ali Huseynli said that the second item was about duties. It is planned to table a law about pro bono legal assistance in the context of the judicial and legal reforms eventually.

The Committee Chairman also touched on the question of putting on more judges, saying that 44 new judges had been appointed in February this year in execution of the corresponding decree of Mr President. Right now, 44 judges have progressed to the training stage, 152 candidate judges are at the second stage and 100 people more have applied for reappointment as judges. Judges are being selected constantly. In general, a very substantial kind of work has been done over the two years past in terms of implementing the presidential decree on increasing the number of judges in the country. As for the Bill in question, Mr Huseynli added, it was going to contribute to the current reforms in the national judicial and legal system.

Chairman of the Economic Policy, Industries and Enterprising Committee Tahir Mirkishili followed up by tabling the draft amendments to the State Duty Law. It followed from his commentary that one of the key points was about how the system of altering the duties impacted the vulnerable sections of the population. So, the Bill encompasses the care to be taken of the lower-income social layers.

Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova interjected that the MPs should forever be open to mass media.

‘The more open we are, the faster answers are found to the questions arising in the society and the fuller the answers will be,’ Mrs Gafarova said.

Comments regarding the amendments as tabled came from the committee chairmen Zahid Oruj, Siyavush Novruzov and Ziyafet Asgarov as well as the MPs Fazil Mustafa, Fazail Agamali, Razi Nurullayev, Elshan Musayev, Etibar Aliyev and Aydin Huseynov.

The House voted each of the three Bills through the second reading separately and with that, the plenary sitting of the Milli Majlis was finished.

The Press and Public Relations Department

The Milli Majlis