Parliamentary committee chairman: PACE Committee demonstrates biased attitude toward Azerbaijani candidates for post of judge at ECHR

Parliamentary committee chairman: PACE Committee demonstrates biased attitude toward Azerbaijani candidates for post of judge at ECHR
# 19 June 2015 15:02 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Mubariz Aslanov – APA. Chairman of the Azerbaijani Parliament's Committee on Law Policy and State Building, member of the Azerbaijani Delegation to PACE, Ali Huseynli’s interview with APA

- During the meeting of the PACE Committee on the election of judges to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), interviews were held for candidates put forward by Azerbaijan. But the result wasn’t satisfactory. We’d like to learn your opinion on this issue.

- First of all, I want to say the candidates nominated by Azerbaijan have been selected in a transparent, open, and fair procedure. The related notice was published in the media by the Judicial-Legal Council. And the nominees were list in two stages – written test and interview.

I should note that interviews were held for candidates nominated by 4 countries, besides Azerbaijan. Though the interviews were held behind the closed doors, we got information that they demonstrated a biased attitude toward Azerbaijan. For example, a candidate from Luxembourg told the committee members that elections were not transparent in his country, and he didn’t know how he was included in this list. However, the Committee has submitted the list of Luxembourg to the PACE session.

- Mr. Ali, experts say that the list of Azerbaijan was not submitted to the PACE session as it included a government representative who would be an interested party in the cases considered by the ECHR.

- This approach is subjective and biased. The list of Armenia includes a person who sent more than 160 complaints to the ECHR on behalf of the Armenian citizens. The committee members think that this case doesn’t affect the objectivity of the candidate, but take exactly the opposite position toward the authorized representative of Azerbaijan

- Can the Azerbaijani side nominate the candidates for the second time?

- The Azerbaijani government has a sovereign right to propose any candidates again.

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