Domestic

Home page

Domestic

Azerbaijani Parliament adopts draft lifting restriction imposed on election of Human Rights Commissioner

26 May 2009 11:16 (UTC +04:00)

Chairman of the parliamentâ€™s committee for legal policy and statehood Ali Huseynov gave information about the draft. Huseynov said the draft had been put to the discussion of the parliament on the initiative of parliamentarians. He said it was offered to amend the articles 4.2 and 4.3 of the law.

He said according to the amendment proposed to Article 4.2, human rights commissioner can not be elected more than twice, and according to the amendment proposed to Article 4.3, if the new human rights commissioner is not elected on the day, when the tenure of the human rights commissioner expires, the previous commissioner continues to hold the post. In this case, the human rights commissionerâ€™s tenure is considered to end the day when the new commissioner is elected.

Parliamentarians expressed their opinion of the draft. MP Igbal Agazadeh said the present Human Rights Commissioner failed to fulfill her duties.
â€œThere is discrepancy in this issue. As this is the Constitutional law, it must be put to the voting after six months and must come into force after that. The tenure of the present commissioner expires in July. What about the time gap?â€ he said.

First vice-speaker of the parliament Ziyafat Asgarov said: â€œThere is no need to worry.â€
â€œWe will act in line with the present legislation. There will not be six-month gap. The tenure of the present Human Rights Commissioner expires in July. The amendment to the law concerns the regulation of the further relations,â€ he said.

Asgarov said amendments to the law served the democracy.

MP Zahid Oruj said it was impossible to apply these amendments to the present Human Rights Commissioner.

The draft was adopted after the discussions.