Baku / 10.26.18 / Turan: Civil society activists in Azerbaijan questioned the effectiveness of the projects of the Council of Europe and the European Union implemented in Azerbaijan in 2015-2018. The interlocutors of the Turan agency believe that these projects not only did not contribute to the improvement of the situation with democratic rights and freedoms, because in fact, the situation in this area has deteriorated further.
B 2015-2018 in the framework of the Partnership for Good Governance, 4 projects were implemented in Azerbaijan to support freedom of expression, reform the justice system, fight against money laundering, corruption, etc. These projects, worth € 5.2 million, were financed by the European Union and the Council of Europe. However, these projects did not give impetus to the reforms, but, on the contrary, hindered them.
"If we turn to statistics, in 2014 and in the previous few years, the defamation courts did not issue a single arrest sentence. However, after the trainings of the Council of Europe in 2015-2017, last year five people were arrested for defamation.
In addition, during this period, many people were sentenced to fines. I do not understand what the experts of the Council of Europe taught at the trainings of law enforcement and justice workers that statistics, instead of decreasing, began to grow," said investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova.
She also noted that in 2014 the number of political prisoners was 98, and now it is 130.
"During these years, the European Court of Human Rights adopted 7 decisions recognizing a violation of Article 18 (limits on the use of limitation of rights). These decisions recognized political discrimination. Most of these sentences were made after 2015. I don"t know what the Council of Europe taught Azerbaijani judges, but there haven"t been any positive changes in their behavior," Ismayilova continued.
According to her, the CE sent experts to prepare changes to the legislation on NGOs.
"These experts are probably due to government dissatisfaction that has changed several times. But nothing is heard about the bill. There was a question about the dialogue with civil society in making political decisions, but we did not witness this," Ismayilova said.
She recalled that the CE projects were also related to the fight against money laundering.
"I have not seen a single investigation in the framework of these projects on the fight against the laundering of "dirty money" and corruption. I believe that this project itself can be considered "money laundering," Ismayilova said.
Lawyer Asabali Mustafayev believes the project on the application of standards of the European Court is very important.
"Within this project, lawyers and solicitors were trained in the preparation of appeals to the European Court. But there are drawbacks. I think that it was necessary to show the results: how many people from those who passed the training sent complaints to the European Court.
And second, it was necessary to investigate the situation with the implementation of the decisions of the ECHR. The lack of this greatly underestimated the quality of the project," said Mustafayev.
The head of the Society for the Protection of Women's Rights, Novella Jafaroglu, believes that Council of Europe projects did not contribute to judicial reforms.
"Previously, we in courts defended the rights of women as public defenders. After changes in legislation, only lawyers can represent citizens in the courts. Now we cannot protect the rights of people and they actually remain defenseless," Jafaroglu said.
However, the head of the pro-government Foundation for the Study of the Constitution, Alimammad Nuriyev, believes that the Council of Europe"s projects significantly contribute to the improvement of legislation.
"Azerbaijan considers European integration as one of its priorities. Azerbaijan has joined a number of European conventions. On this basis, changes are made in the legislation. For example, significant changes have been made to the law "On the fight against corruption, the criminal procedure code, and the law on the rights and freedoms of persons held in places of detention. New amendments are being prepared to the law "On lawyers and advocate activities". Many proposals have been made in connection with the law "On Public Associations," said Nuriyev.
The head of the Law and Development Public Association, Hafiz Hasanov, noted that in the past, the CoE projects had at least some results. "Now there are practically no positive results. There are many recommendations of the CoE Venice Commission on elections, on NGOs, but there are no results," Hasanov said.
In his opinion, now the CoE projects with the Azerbaijani government are of a formal nature. "They are not important for the improvement of the electoral system and legislation, the implementation of judicial reforms, or the application of case-law decisions of the European Court," Hasanov said. -06D--
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