The chairman of the Milli Majlis Health Committee Ahliman Amiraslanov said as he was opening the committee meeting held on 10 March that the agenda contained five first-reading Bills that had arrived at the Milli Majlis in one package signed by the president of the country.

Those were the amendments to the Narcological Service and the Narcological Control Law and the Bill containing amendments to the laws ‘On the Status of Military Personnel’, ‘On the Circulation of Narcotic Drugs, Psychotropic Substances and their Precursors’ and ‘On the Military Duty and Service’ as well as to the Internal Service Statute of the Armed Forces of the Azerbaijan Republic enacted by the law No 887 of the Azerbaijan Republic dated 23 September 1994. The same package also includes three other Bills with amendments to the Criminal Code, the Code of Administrative Offences and the Code of Criminal Procedure.  

All those drafts are prepared on the force of the presidential decree No 1334 of 22 July 2019 enacting the 2019-2024 State Action Programme against Narcotics and Psychotropic Compounds Traffic and Drug Addiction.

The Bills were tabled by the Head of the Administrative Legislation Sector of the State-Building, Administrative and Defence Legislation Department of the Milli Majlis Staff Kamala Pashayeva.

According to Mrs Pashayeva, the five bills are concerned with two topicalities. Namely, the amendments to the Narcological Service and the Narcological Control Law and the set of amendments to the ‘On the Status of Military Personnel’, ‘On the Circulation of Narcotic Drugs, Psychotropic Substances and their Precursors’ and ‘On the Military Duty and Service’ as well as to the Internal Service Statute of the Armed Forces of the Azerbaijan Republic enacted by the law No 887 of the Azerbaijan Republic dated 23 September 1994 pursue to the goal of advance detection and prevention of drug addiction. Both documents lay down the legal basics of the compulsory Narcological inspection of active military service conscripts and servicemen, contracted volunteers and regular commissioned officers.

As regards the three Bills that contain amendments to the Criminal Code, the Code of Administrative Offences and the Code of Criminal Procedure, their purpose is to introduce a more rigorous countering of drug trafficking and addiction.

Kamala Pashayeva said that the amendments to the Criminal Code were necessitated by the need to streamline the legislation on large-quantity and grand-quantity transit and acquisition of narcotic plants without intent to sell. It is proposed to replace the wording ‘more than a quantity intended for personal consumption’ with the word ‘considerable’ in Article 234.1 and the formulation ‘and their accumulation’ with that of ‘or cultivation’ in Article 237.1.

In addition, the same amendments will introduce sterner sanctions for illegal acquisition, storage and production of narcotics and psychotropic compounds and their precursors, again, in large or especially large quantities, and with intent to sell them subsequently.

Going over to the amendments to the Code of Administrative Offences, Mrs Pashayeva told the committee meeting participants that it was proposed to term acts linked to small-quantity drug circulation without intent to sell as an administrative offence not entailing criminal prosecution.

Further, the first-reading amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code are about adjustment of the procedural standards, which is required to make the action against trafficking and addiction more rigorous.

As the discussion followed, the MPs Ilham Mammadov, Mushfig Mammadli, Sadagat Valiyeva and Nizami Jafarov voiced their support for all the five Bills drawn up pursuant to the aforementioned presidential decree enacting the relevant 2019-2024 State Programme. The law-makers found the intention to toughen the action against trafficking and addiction to be commendable and said that criminalisation of online dealing in Azerbaijan was the call of the times.

The Committee members Kamila Aliyeva, Kamaladdin Gafarov, Ulvi Guliyev and Anatoliy Rafailov, too, attended the meeting in culmination of which it was decided unanimously to recommend that the Bills should be brought before the plenum of the Milli Majlis in the first reading.

The Press and Public Relations Department
The Milli Majlis