As he opened the first meeting of the Milli Majlis Law Policy and State-Building Committee in the current parliamentary session on 25 January, the deputy chair of the committee Gudrat Hasanguliyev let the colleagues known the agenda consisted of five items.

Item I was the account of the work that the committee had done during the autumn session of 2021. Whilst submitting it, Mr Hasanguliyev mentioned the 25 committee meetings at which 87 matters had been processed withal. Amongst them had been 26 draft laws having gone through three readings and the 5 ones that had been considered in one reading only. Besides, the committee had approved the draft of a V-Day amnesty resolution and another on appointment of doctors. There had been 231 variously-themed applications, hardcopy and electronic, from citizens, various authorities and organisations. The committee had been tracing oral appeals made by citizens as well and had been taking appropriate steps in their regard. Besides, citizens had been received and heard out – online and by telephone in line with the quarantine regulations. The committee members had taken part in the wakes of the 44-day Patriotic War shahids and had called on their families as well as they had done on the war gazies.

Having said all that, Mr Hasanguliyev moved on to the work plan for the spring session of 2022. There will be Bills coming up to the Milli Majlis in the context of the legislative initiatives of the President, the MPs themselves as well as the Supreme Court, the General Prosecution Office and the Supreme Majlis of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. In addition, other draft laws will be reviewed and proposals made by appropriate departments and citizens will be analysed and generalised at the forthcoming committee meetings.

The participants of the meeting endorsed the past-session work report and adopted the action plan for the current session.

Going further, Gudrat Hasanguliyev tabled the next two agenda items being separate sets of draft amendments (both in the first reading) to the Traffic Regulations Law and the Code of Administrative Offences.

It was the deputy head of the Legal Department of the Baku Transport Agency Dashghin Ibadov who enlightened the MPs accordingly. He pointed out that the amendments followed the presidential decree No 181 ‘On the Additional Measures to Ensure Observance in Baku City of the Transport-Vehicle Stopping, Stationing and Parking Rules and on the Improvement of the Traffic Control Practice’ (dated 6 July 2018). In both cases, Mr Ibadov said, the ultimate goal was to make certain that motorists would observe those rules. Besides, the amendments also apply to regulation of paid car-parks and envisage increases in several transport fines. The relevant international experience had been taken into consideration whilst the drafts were in the making, according to Mr Ibadov.

In the debates that followed, opinions were made known by Gudrat Hasanguliyev, the committee members Fazail Agamali, Tahir Karimli, Azay Guliyev and Elshan Musayev as well as the BTA Chairman of the Board Vusal Karimli and the head of the PR department of the Chief State Traffic Police Department Kamran Aliyev.

It was recommended eventually that both Bills should be brought before the Milli Majlis at a sitting in plenary.

Next, the meeting participants were introduced to another set of draft amendments (in the first reading, again) to the Code of Administrative Offences, which, as Mr Hasanguliyev clarified, consisted in adding Paragraph 279.0.1.1 to Article 279 of the Code to adjust the said article in terms of preventing carbon monoxide poisoning and gas explosion cases.

The committee recommended that those amendments, too, should be tabled for consideration at a plenary session of the Milli Majlis.

The other members of the parliamentary committee Nizami Safarov, Mader Musayev, Amina Agazade, Bahrouz Maharramov, Tahir Karimli, Nurlan Hasanov, Kamal Jafarov, Sabir Hajiyev, Vugar Isgandarov and Jabi Guliyev as well as officials of various concerned agencies took part in the link-up meeting as well.

The Press and Public Relations Department
The Milli Majlis