The first meeting of the Labour and Social Policy Committee during the spring parliamentary session of  this year took place on 26 January.

Committee Chairman Musa Guliyev opened the meeting and wished the MPs success during the session.

As for the agenda of the meeting, it dealt with the account of the work that the committee had done during the autumn session of 2021, in connexion with which Mr Guliyev mentioned the 15 committee meetings and the 21 draft laws considered at them. All the Bills had been recommended for submission for consideration of the Milli Majlis and had been made laws at the plena eventually.

In the same period, the committee received 970 documents, amongst them 822 citizen applications and 148 response letters from ministries and various departments. The citizens’ applications were considered, and appropriate steps were taken then. Besides, both the chairman and the members of the committee were receiving citizens and meeting with electors, all in keeping with the quarantine regulations and restrictions.

Then, the meeting moved on to the second item on the agenda, it being the plan of work for the spring session of the current year. Musa Guliyev mentioned the forthcoming amendments and addenda to the Employment Law and the earmarked hearings: ‘The Labour Pensions Reforms: Outcomes, Challenges and Prospects’ and the other one about the status of implementation of the law ‘On Restricting the Consumption of Tobacco’.

The deputy chairman of the committee Malahat Ibrahimghizi and the MPs Jala Aliyeva, Vugar Bayramov, Sevinj Huseynova, Ilham Mammadov, Arzu Naghiyev, Aghil Mammadov and Aziz Alakbarov spoke their respective minds about the agenda items. They mentioned the fruitful operations of the committee during the past session and said that the committee members had not only been preoccupied with legislative matters but also carried on the hands-on work on the concerns of electors and, especially, of the shahid families and the gazies.

The MPs also talked about what was to be done during the spring session; they emphasised the importance of discussing the hearings’ subject-matters and of finding solutions to the problems. Besides, they commented on the impact of the pandemic on the employment situation, moving non-formal labour relations onto the official plane, the fate of deceased persons’ pension capitals, physical handicaps and the invalidity allowances.

The committee chairman said by way of summing the debates up that the social policy was concerned with one of the most sensitive and difficult areas. He told of the serious work done in it in Azerbaijan and underlined the necessity of approaching such matters the right way. Mr Guliyev also brought up the subject of how the MPs could assist in implementing the state social policy.

In the end, the 2021 autumn session performance account was endorsed and the 2022 spring session work plan was approved and adopted as presented.

MP Soltan Mammadov and other officials took part in the committee meeting as well.

The Press and Public Relations Department
The Milli Majlis