Adoption of the agenda was followed by a discussion of the current issues at a scheduled parliamentary meeting in plenary held under the chairmanship of Speaker of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova on 15 April.

The committee chairman Siyavush Novruzov and the MPs Bahrouz Maharramov, Razi Nurullayev, Musa Gasimli, Elman Nasirov, Gudrat Hasanguliyev, Tural Ganjaliyev, Fazil Mustafa, Konul Nurullayeva and Ali Masimli went through a range of subjects.

The political and economic significance of the Q122 summary meeting held under the chairmanship of President Ilham Aliyev and the importance of the Head of State telling the citizens of the real state of affairs directly were talked of. The talk also touched on the imperative to protect the national interest in the press and to step up the military-patriotic education in the country. It was said in relation to the mass burials discovered in the de-occupied territories that those who had committed those crimes against civilian population had to be brought to account and that the proof thus revealed had to be brought to bear in international litigations against Armenia.

Besides, the MPs covered the matters of concern to their electors and their problems, perpetuating the name of the shahids, social protection for handicapped people and educational loans – this last practice getting off the ground this year was met with their acclaim.

The plenum proceeded in accordance with its agenda then.

Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova told the House that there were 14 items on the agenda with Item 1 being a draft resolution of the Milli Majlis to modify its own already effective resolution on election of the MM working groups for inter-parliamentary connexions.

The vote followed; the House seconded the draft and it was adopted as tabled.

The second item, Mrs Gafarova said, was a Bill submitted to the parliament by the President to approve the Radio Regulations of the International Telecommunication Union as well as the Final Acts of the World Radiocommunication Conference. 

Elnur Allahverdiyev of the Economic Policy, Industries and Enterprising Committee said as he was giving an overview of the Bill that Azerbaijan had joined the 193-member ITU back in 1992 and had also joined, via her declarations to that effect, the Final Acts of the WRC held in Sharm El Sheikh on 22 November 2019. The Acts bring along frequency distribution, registration and notification of frequency denominations, and other technical issues. The ITU Radio Regulations, then, compounds the WRC decisions with the main purpose of making certain that the ITU members would use frequencies based on the latest engineering achievements and solutions.

Samad Seyidov put forth the relevant favourable opinion statement of the International and Inter-Parliamentary Relations Committee he chairs. Then, the Milli Majlis voted the Bill through in one reading.

Speaker Gafarova said then that the next five items on the agenda were the third-reading Bills coming up for the House to consider.

The chairman of the Economic Policy, Industries and Enterprising Committee Tahir Mirkishili tabled the interlinked sets of draft amendments to the Licences and Permits Law, and the State Duty Law. Submitted to the Milli Majlis by the President, those two were based on the Media Law and were meant to sync the licensable telecasters and broadcasters with the classification of audio-visual media activity subjects given in the legislative act.

Both Bills were voted in one after another.

Nizami Safarov of the Law Policy and State-Building Committee proceeded to present to the House the draft amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure, of the adjusting nature, he said, drawn up to determine the use of the E-Court information system in judicial proceedings as well as pre-investigation stages.

That Bill was voted in, too.

The parliamentary committee chairman Tahir Mirkishili gave an overview of the amendments to the State Property Privatisation Law. According to Mr Mirkishili, pursuant to Article 11.2 of the Law, there would be deductions from the state property privatisation returns at the disposal of the state authority carrying out the privatisation. Such deductions will be spent on the ends defined in the said article. Also, it is proposed to put in more relevant spending items so that the list would include supporting operations of the already-privatised enterprises and facilities, supporting also the safekeeping and protection of state property and reinforcing the logistical foundation of the state property seller. Now, the amendment at hand will add to the efficiency of the relevant activities of the concerned state agency.

The Bill was voted in.

Anar Mammadov of the Economic Policy, Industries and Enterprising Committee told the House about the amendments to the Anti-Monopoly Activities Law, the Food Products Law and the State Secret Law. He recalled the inception of the State Reserves Agency and the adoption of its Charter pursuant to the relevant presidential decrees. The amendments had been drafted in line with those decrees, and were on the adjusting side, MP Mammadov explained.

The favourable conclusions of the Law Policy and State-Building Committee as well as of the Agrarian Policy Committee had been heard before the Milli Majlis passed the amendments.

Aydin Huseynov of the Economic Policy, Industries and Enterprising Committee brought before the House the amendments to the Law ‘On the State Register of Real Estate’. The presidential decree ‘On Certain Aspects of the Land Relations Regulation’ of 7 October 2021 envisages that the property rights of the people who had bought land allotments in the privatised former territories of the equally former Soviet and collective farms but had not got round to formalising their rights over their plots are to be put in the State Register, and those people are to be issued with their State Register slips together with the allotment layout and size specifications at the State’s expense. That is intended to that the registration of the allotment proprietary rights is completed and to make sure that landowners can benefit by crops-sowing subsidies. Besides, the amendments to the State Register Law dated 5 November 2021 exempt from the previously-levied state duty the issues of the State Registry of Real Estate slips of state registration (of land ownership) to those people who had bought allotments. Such slips are issued together with the technical documentation. Well, coming to the Bill now tabled before the Parliament, MP Huseynov was saying, it had been put together in accordance with the effective amendments in the State Duty Law.

On hearing their colleague, the MPs put the Bill introduced by him on vote and passed it.

The Chair of the Milli Majlis announced then that that was the turn of six second-reading Bills.

The chairman of the Defence, Security and Counter-Corruption Committee Ziyafet Asgarov tabled the two items, again, interconnected, which were draft amendments to the Narcological Service and the Narcological Control Law and a package of amendments to 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 draft laws had been drawn up to meet the requirements 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 said decree’s Item 4.2 envisages adjustment and optimisation of the pertaining legislation, in which connexion the tabled amendments, in turn, will introduce compulsory narcological inspection of the citizens falling into certain categories. Namely, active military service conscripts (will be inspected whilst conscripted), the active military service personnel (will be inspected at least once a year), voluntary officers (will be inspected before the relevant orders are signed off) and contractees (before contracted).

The representatives of the parliamentary committees that had scrutinised the Bills – Ahliman Amiraslanov (Chairman, the Health Committee) and Nizami Safarov (Member, the Law Policy and State-Building Committee) – presented to the House the respective endorsements of their corresponding committees.

Deliberations were followed. The parliamentary committee chairman Siyavush Novruzov and the MPs Fazil Mustafa and Naghif Hamzayev felt it necessary to voice their considerations and suggestions. Ahliman Amiraslanov, in his turn, clarified some aspects of the drafts they had pinpointed.

Both Bills were voted in one after another subsequently.

As the plenum drew on, the above-said MP Nizami Safarov elaborated on amendments to the Criminal Code. He told the colleagues that the document laid the legal standards of acquisition, possession, production, processing and transportation of narcotics and psychotropic substances in considerable, large and especially large amounts, with graver sanctions premeditated for the ‘large’ and ‘especially large’ cases. At the same time, there are the new articles-to-be that will introduce sterner penalties for illegal acquisition, possession and production of narcotics, psychotropes and precursors with the intent to sell as well as for the acts covered by the Criminal Code articles Nos 235, 237 and 240.

Nizami Safarov also tabled draft amendments to the Code of Administrative Offences, which amendments, he pointed out, was devised to sync the CAO with the amendments to the Criminal Code though the cases entailing administrative rather than criminal prosecution were contemplated in this instance.

The Health Committee chairman Ahliman Amiraslanov announced that his committee had reviewed the Bills and were supportive of them both.

Comments and suggestions were made by the MPs Razi Nurullayev and Sabir Rustamkhanli, whereupon the Bills were voted in one after another.

Nizami Safarov, again, tabled amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure. It is proposed, as a means to tighten the trafficking and addiction counteraction, to destroy or transfer to appropriate offices for subsequent medical use such narcotics, psychotropes and precursors as well as other high-potency substances that are seized and removed from trafficking as body of evidence supporting pre-trial criminal proceedings. Such material evidence will also be either destroyed or relegated for medical use where their quantities exceed the ‘especially large amount’ limits set for such substances legislatively. A number of amendments and addenda to several articles of the Criminal Code are proposed therefore, MP Safarov concluded.

The favourable opinion statement of the Health Care Committee was heard and the Bill was voted in then.

Nurlan Hasanov of the Law Policy and State-Building Committee supplied the House with an overview of yet another set of Criminal Code amendments. It is proposed to replace the wording ‘abroad… on the part of the head of the organisation’ with the word ‘abroad’ in Article 208 to lift the limitation as to what subjects are prosecutable for violation of the repatriation requirement for FX amounts exceeding AZN 20,000 and derived from foreign economic operations (of such subjects). Once the amendments are passed into law, physical and legal persons alike will be prosecutable for such misdeeds.

The MPs Vugar Bayramov and Aziz Alasgarov shared their thoughts about the document. Nurlan Hasanov answered their questions and then the Bill he had presented was voted through the second reading.

And the plenum of the Milli Majlis called today was over then.

The Press and Public Relations Department
The Milli Majlis