Parliament published updated version of bill on parties

Baku/21.11.22/Turan: An updated version of the draft of the new Law "On Political Parties" has been published on the website of the Milli Majlis. It eliminated some provisions that caused criticism of the opposition.

In particular, from now on, "at least 50 citizens" can act as founders of parties (originally there were at least 200 citizens).

It also eliminated the requirement that the founders of the party can be persons who have been permanently residing in the territory of Azerbaijan for at least 20 years. The new edition does not say anything about this.

Note that the requirements for the number of party members for its state registration are reduced by 2 times - up to 5.000.

However, if the number of party members drops to less than 4.500, the party may be dissolved by a court decision.

At the same time, parties with state registration will be given 180 days to bring the number of members to 5.000. Otherwise, an appropriate executive power (Ministry of Justice) will file a claim with the Court of Appeal for the liquidation of the party.

The requirement to liquidate political parties that have not participated in elections twice in a row is also eliminated.

The procedure for setting the upper limit of donations provided by one person to a party or parties has changed. This index is set at 35 minimum wages. Today, it is 10.500 manats.

In the initial edition, the upper limit of the donation was set within the amount of 10.000 manats.

An innovation is the financing of political parties that participated in the elections, but failed to get into the parliament. These parties will be allocated 2.5% of the amount allocated for financing from the state budget.

Membership fees and donations to parties will be exempt from taxes.

At the same time, the bill retains the norm on inadmissibility of the activities of political parties that do not have state registration. -06B-