What does the bill "On political parties" promises the citizens?

Baku/22.11.22/Turan: An updated version of the new draft law "On Political Parties" has been published on the website of the Milli Majlis. Some of the provisions that provoked criticism from the opposition have been removed from the document.

Thus, from now on, "at least 50 citizens" can act as founders of the party. Initially there were at least 200 citizens. At the same time, the requirement according to which, the founders of the party can be persons permanently residing in the territory of Azerbaijan for at least 20 years was removed from the document. There is no mention of this in the new edition.

The requirement for the number of party members for its state registration has been reduced by two - to five thousand people. But, if the number of party members is below 4,500 people, then the party can be dissolved by a court decision.

At the same time, parties with state registration will be given a period of 180 days to bring the number of their members to 5,000 people. Otherwise, the Ministry of Justice will appeal to the Court of Appeal with a claim to dissolve the party.

At the same time, the requirement to liquidate political parties that did not participate in elections twice in a row was removed from the document.

The procedure for determining the upper limit of a person's donations to one or more parties has changed. This indicator is set at 35 minimum wages. Today it is 10.5 thousand manats. In the initial version, the upper limit of donations was set at 10,000 manats.

An innovation is also the financing of political parties that participated in the elections, but did not get into parliament. These parties will be allocated 2.5% of the amount allocated from the state budget for financing parties.

Membership fees and donations to parties will not be taxed. The draft law preserves the rule on the inadmissibility of the activities of political parties that do not have state registration.

The chairman of the public association "Right and Development" Hafiz Hasanov  tells about it in the "Difficult question"  program.

According to him, there was no need to write a new “Law on Parties”. “It was enough to make some changes to the section concerning the financing of political parties of the current Law “On Parties”, i.e. to introduce articles into the Law related to facilitating the registration of political parties and their provision by the state. In particular, providing them with headquarters, providing financial support in order to get rid of foreign dependence and protect them from other illegal moments,” the human rights activist is convinced.

In his opinion, the appearance of such a law does not bode well for citizens and  from a legal point of view this is a step backwards.

“Despite the fact that the most odious provisions were removed from the document, it still violates one of the fundamental human rights - freedom of association, enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 20), the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (Article 11), the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 22)," Hasanov said.