Opening meeting of the Milli Majlis Labour and Social Policy Committee on the 10^th of September 2021, Committee Chairman Musa Guliyev introduced the first agenda item as the Committee performance report for the 2021 spring and extraordinary parliamentary sessions.

The problems of shahid families, servicemen handicapped at war and gazis had been in the focus of the Parliament during both sessions whilst the Committee members had spent the report period meeting with shahid families and gazis as well as conducting their ordinary surgeries in keeping with the quarantine regulations. The Committee received 458 requests and applications and took steps to look into the issued raised in them. The report period had seen 12 committee meetings convened to process 25 draft laws.

Having done with Item 1, Musa Guliyev told the assembled of the Committee working plan for the 2021 autumn session.

The Tourism Law included in the plan was ready at the previous session but it is now necessary to adjust it in view of the pandemic circumstances. As for the Charitable Activities Bill, also in the plan, the relevant Working Group had reviewed it. Speaking of which, the Working Group had studied the corresponding experience of several countries as well as of the Heydar Aliyev and YASAT foundations whilst composing the draft.

Hearings about supporting shahid families and gazis are forthcoming this session, too, Mr Guliyev mentioned.

Deputy Chair of the Labour and Social Policy Committee Malahat Ibrahimghizi and the Committee members Jala Aliyeva, Aghil Mammadov, Ilham Mammadov, Arzu Naghiyev and Sevinj Huseynova shared their views of the spring/extraordinary-session performance report and the autumn-session work plan.

Next, the Committee began consideration of the Bills on the agenda.

According to Musa Guliyev, the draft amendments to the Law ‘On Perpetuating the Shahid Title and on the Shahid Household Benefits’ refers to members of shahid families having been added to the list of vulnerable social groups contained in the Law ‘On Employment’ so that such families’ members, too, can enjoy advantages in vocational training as well as self-employment and public works arrangements. Thus, the proposed amendments are intended to align both laws with the former to reflect the changes made in the Employment Law.

As regards the draft amendments to the Laws ‘On Perpetuating the Shahid Title and the Shahid Family Benefits’ and ‘On the Social Protection of Orphans and Children Deprived of Parental Care’, they are drawn up pursuant to the Law ‘On Social Benefits’ and the Decree No 1223 dated 30 December 2020 whereby pensions and benefits were amalgamated with the pension having been raised from AZN 300 to AZN 500. Besides, certain amendments are proposed to put orphaned children and children deprived of parental care on complete state maintenance.

Then came the turn of the last item – the first-reading amendments to the Laws ‘On Insolvency and Bankruptcy’, ‘On Execution’, ‘On banks’, ‘On Theatre and Theatrical Activities’, ‘On the Insurance Practice’, ‘On the Special Economic Treatment of the Export-Oriented Petroleum Operations’ and ‘On Employment’. Commenting on those, Musa Guliyev said that they were about a transition to the compulsory medical insurance system.

Opinions about the Bills and relevant proposals were voiced by the MPs Aghil Mammadov, Avaz Alakbarov and Sevinj Huseynova, whereafter the Committee members recommended that all the three Bills should be tabled at a plenary sitting of the Milli Majlis.

Ziyad Samadzade, Vugar Bayramov, Rauf Aliyev, Sattar Mehbaliyev and other officials took part in the meeting as well.

The Press and Public Relations Department

The Milli Majlis