Activists: Authorities Violate Principles of Open Government

Baku / 02.04.19 / Turan: A group of representatives of civil society in Azerbaijan made a statement accusing the authorities of not respecting the principles of the international Open Government Partnership (OGP).

They appealed to the OGP Steering Committee with a request not to take the "Road Map" proposed by the Government of Azerbaijan to restore full membership of the country in this organization.

Activists remind that the OGP Steering Committee on December 5, 2018 confirmed the "inactive" status of Azerbaijan in this international organization. The reason - the issues raised before the authorities are not solved.

In addition to minor changes over the past year, the government of Azerbaijan has not carried out significant reforms based on the Subcommittee"s proposals on criteria and standards for OGP.

In particular, problems with the registration and financing of NGOs are still not resolved. The issues of receiving financial assistance from foreign donors, registering grant projects with the Ministry of Justice and obtaining the consent of government agencies are not resolved.

In February 2019, activists prepared proposals that were discussed with the NGO Dialogue Platform (the structure of pro-government NGOs) and it was decided to establish a Working Group to prepare the draft Roadmap with a view to submitting it to the government.

The working group has prepared a draft and approved. However, later in the document sent by the Government Anti-Corruption Commission to the OGP Secretariat, only a part of the proposals of the Working Group were reflected. In general, the document does not comply with the provisions of the OGP Steering Committee resolution of December 5, 2018.

Therefore, representatives of independent civil society groups believe that the government of Azerbaijan still does not attach great importance to the principles of OGP.

Therefore, the authors of the statement believe that the "Road Map" proposed by the Government of Azerbaijan should not be accepted by the OGP Steering Committee, since:

1) The Road Map was not discussed and adopted at the government level.

2) When adopting the Roadmap, there was no dialogue and discussion between government structures and independent civil society groups.

3) The Road Map does not comply with the resolution of the OGP Steering Committee of 5) December 2018 and does not reflect the recommendations previously made by this international organization

4) The Road Map does not reflect most of the issues that were in the draft of independent civil society groups.

5) The Road Map does not provide for a sustained dialogue between the government and civil society organizations.

The statement was signed by Zohrab Ismail (Public Association for the Promotion of Free Economy), Gubad Ibadoglu (Center for Public Associations), Akif Gurbanov (Institute for Democratic Initiatives), Mehman Aliyev (Director of Turan Agency), Anar Mammadli (Center for Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies), Ziya Guliyev (Center for Legal Initiatives), Rasul Jafarov (Human Rights Club), Galib Bayramov (Center for Economic Initiatives), Leyla Aliyeva (Center for National and International Studies) and Alasgar Mammadli (lawyer, member of the Working Group). -06D-