Entrepreneur Appeals to Prosecutor General�s Office against State Property Committee

So, at the end of last month the entrepreneur Iskender Gurbanov appealed to the editorial office with a complaint about the employees of SPC threatening to destroy the greenhouse complex located on 28 hectares of land allocated to him for this purpose by the order of the head of the Baku City Executive Power No. 460 of 04.11.2016 with the participation of the French Company Richelieu. The material is under the link: http://www.turan.az/ext/news/2017/7/free/economics%20news/en/64458.htm

But that's not all. SPC did not stop even at the fact that the mentioned object is covered by the Investment Promotion Program of the Ministry of Economy of Azerbaijan, and a preferential loan under the National Entrepreneurship Support Fund (NESF) was allocated for its implementation. According to Gurbanov, initially the project is designed for 250 new jobs and annual production of vegetables worth $ 10 million. It turns out that the project coordinated with the capital's executive power and the Ministry of Economics and almost completed on the preferential loan of NESF suddenly fell out of favor with SPC. As you can see, we have nonsense, because citizens are not responsible for uncoordinated decisions of state bodies. But first things first...

The lawyer Eldar Hasanov, representing the entrepreneur's interests, told the following about the motivation of his actions: "For exactly three days, since July 25, employees of SPC have terrorized the owners of the greenhouse complex, demanding to suspend the construction of the object already rebuilt by 90% to find out the circumstances," Hasanov said. "Without mentioning their names and surnames, they stated that they would come with heavy equipment to demolish the greenhouse. One of the arguments was the lack of an extract from the cadastre, for which we applied to this structure back in March this year. Under the law, the extract should have been provided in a month, but it has not been done so far. I.e. the officials sought this situation.

"But most importantly, we were informed that, it turns out, the head of the executive power did not coordinate his order with SPC. This argument looks, to put it mildly, ridiculously, because citizens are not responsible for interdepartmental problems. In this case, the Baku Executive Power and SPC had to resolve this issue themselves," Huseynov said.

The entrepreneur had no choice but to appeal to the Prosecutor General's Office: "At the end of last month, a statement was made to the Prosecutor General"s Office, after which the pressure ceased and representatives of this structure did not come to the facility anymore," said the lawyer, who noted that the reaction of the prosecutor"s office to the appeal is expected in the near future.

For legal assessment of what is happening Turan also appealed to the member of the Bar Association, the well-known human rights activist Akram Hasanov. According to the expert, the real reasons for what is happening are clear, and it is incorrect to focus on this problem without evidence base on the corruption component of the struggle between state bodies. The expert will suggest looking deeper into the problem:

- Let's consider this issue in the following way - after all, what is the state and state bodies? According to Article 43 of the Civil Code, a legal entity is not a state body, but the state itself, i.e. state bodies are not subjects of law. I will explain it with a simple example: for example, when dealing with a joint-stock company, it does not matter to you which official signed a document or contract with you. This may be the chairman of the board, the board itself, the supervisory board, etc., but for the citizen this is not important, since the document is signed by the organization.

Likewise, if a document is issued by a government agency, it means that the state has signed under it. Being a legal entity, the state exercises its powers through state bodies that are not subjects of law. Thus, interdepartmental issues should be resolved at the level of the agencies themselves. In particular, citizens are not responsible for the disagreements between the city executive power and the State Property Committee (SPC). And most importantly, Article 68 of the Constitution of Azerbaijan on Protection from Arbitrariness and the Right to Good Conduct states that everyone has the right to good conduct from the state bodies, which rules out arbitrariness. And further, it is necessary to understand that the state is obliged to compensate the damage inflicted by its bodies or officials. For example, if the government has issued a permit, exceeding the authority, the state reimburses the funds and punishes the officials.

As for the incident with the greenhouse complex in the village Mashtaga of the Sabunchu district, at the moment I"m studying the related documents, because I want to explore the activities of the State Property Committee in more detail. The fact is that to date SPC figures in a series of court cases, disputes, etc. are usually caused by the issuance of incorrect or incomplete documents by SPC. Moreover, it is one of the few state bodies that do not comply with judicial decisions. It is important to note that today the overwhelming majority of private business entities in the country - hotels, recreation areas, etc. - do not have the completeness of documents for real estate.

Moreover, we are talking about the documentation of SPC, and as a result, the business feels unprotected. There is no sense of certainty. This is most clearly seen in the example of the protection of property rights - the pillar of a market economy. And, unfortunately, the main negative role in all this is played by a state agency that is inconspicuous at first glance - SPC. Why is privatization so sluggish in the country? Because no one trusts this committee. You can spend time and money and privatize a state enterprise, and then this structure on a far-fetched occasion can take it from you. This often happens. And private companies cannot get an elementary purchase certificate from this Committee for their property. The reason is the lack of system and arbitrariness of this structure. To date, this body is hurting the economy more than any other.

According to A. Hasanov, he is studying the documentary side of the incident that took place with the greenhouse complex of I. Gurbanov, since it is not a question of a single business, and the activity of this structure lies at the root of many problems of local business and requires special attention. -0---