The Milli Majlis Committee for Labour and Social Policy held its first meeting in the current spring parliamentary session on 23 January.

Committee Chairman Musa Guliyev who started the meeting told of the three items on the agenda before introducing the meeting participants to the Committee performance report on the autumn session 2020 and the work plan for the spring session of 2021.

According to Mr Guliyev, as many as 18 draft laws were discussed and recommended for submission to the Milli Majlis at the meetings that the Committee held during the autumn session of last year. In the same period, the Committee arranged 3 hearings: two on the Measures of social protection at the time of the coronavirus pandemic and the Proposals and ideas regarding the social protection and psychosocial adaptation of war veterans, servicemen injured in action and families of the men fallen in battlefields, and, last but not least, one hearing that involved Minister for Labour and Social Protection of the Population Sahil Babayev and was held as the parliamentary session was drawing to a close.

Mr Guliyev told the assembly that the Committee had received 129 documents during the autumn session, including 114 complaints and 22 letters from ministries and various government departments with answers to the queries sent to them earlier. More than a half of the applications and complaints taken in for consideration were mainly concerned with social protection issues while 19 were about the need to find jobs, 6 had to do with the issues related to the refugees and displaced people and 5 applications were concerned with the applicants’ housing difficulties.

There were 2 field reception sessions last parliamentary session; 35 citizens were received at them. They were heard and given advice and recommendations as to their problems and issues.

Speaking of the 2021 spring session work plan of the Committee then, Mr Guliyev mentioned the intent to table the Tourism Bill and to continue composing the Charitable Activities Bill.

Besides, as Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova recommended, the parliamentary committees will be organising broader hearings to analyse, address and solve problems as they surface. The Labour and Social Policy Committee means to hold three sessions during the current spring session: about the social protection of the shahid and handicapped war veteran families, about providing the population with employment and about enforcement of the Law ‘On Limiting the Consumption of Tobacco Products’.

The third item on the agenda of the meeting was about the draft amendments to the Employment Law of the Azerbaijan Republic. Commenting on them, the Committee Chairman mentioned that they would set a 5% quota for the section of the community in need of social protection: for those, that is, who would be employed in the first order. The amendments envisage the inclusion of the shahid household members in that category. Specifically, then, the amendments to Article 4 of the Law give the shahid household members the pre-emptive advantage in employment, professional training, involvement in self-employment projects and engagement in the paid welfare work. The Committee Chairman remarked that the amendments came as another sign of the great care our State was taking of the shahid families.

The Committee members Malahat Ibrahimghizi, Aghil Mammadov, Vugar Bayramov, Arzu Naghiyev, Sattar Mehbaliyev, Jala Aliyeva, Sevinj Huseynova, Aziz Alakbarli, Soltan Mammadov and Rauf Aliyev spoke as the agenda items were discussed. They stated their views of the 2020 autumn session performance report and commented on the 2021 spring session work plan as well as the draft amendments to the Employment Law. They put forth several relevant proposals, too.

Both the report and the work plan of the Labour and Social Policy Committee were approved following the discussions.

As regards the draft law to the Employment Law of the Azerbaijan Republic, the parliamentary Committee recommended that it be tabled for first-reading deliberations at a plenary sitting of the Milli Majlis.

The Press and Public Relations Department
The Milli Majlis