PPFA got rejected by Ministry of Justice

Baku/20.07.23/Turan: The Ministry of Justice of Azerbaijan has responded with a refusal to the appeal of the Party of People's Front of Azerbaijan (PPFA) for re-registration.

PPFA chairman Ali Kerimli told Turan.

According to him, the Party submitted a list of 5315 members of the organisation to the Ministry of Justice. At the same time, the response from the Ministry of Justice claims that the Party's list included 5,138 members.

"The Ministry further indicates that allegedly the data of 2,497 people is incorrect and therefore clarifications should be made," Kerimli said.

Aside from this, he said, the letter from the Ministry says that 119 people on the PPFA list are allegedly members of other parties, while 59 persons are re-specified.

The Ministry further claims that 609 persons did not turn out to be members of the PPFA at all.

"All these comments are totally unconvincing and are made for political reasons. "The 'shortcomings' cited by the Ministry of Justice have no concrete content and are abstract," Kerimli noted.

He believes that the Ministry of Justice should clarify the errors and shortcomings identified and address them.

"We have the right to know which of the persons we have indicated are members of other parties; who personally declared to the Ministry of Justice that they are not members of the PPFA, whose names were repeated in the list," the PPFA leader continued. 

He said that the PPFA will seek official, detailed and substantiated clarifications from the Ministry of Justice on the said issues.

"We are ready to refute all far-fetched pretexts. If, they want, we can collect copies of the identity cards and submit them to the Ministry. If need be, we can collect all the listed persons in front of the Ministry of Justice," Kerimli said.

He said that the PPFA would use all legal means to restore the Party's rights.

"When legal avenues are exhausted, we will use political means. We will not accept the government's intentions to destroy the real opposition and create a one-party system," Kerimli said.

Earlier, the Ministry of Justice returned the documents of the "Republican Alternative" and "Musavat" Parties for similar reasons.

On 18 July, the Ministry stated that after the new law requiring a minimum of 5,000 party members came into force, 31 parties announced their self-liquidation.

The other 28 parties submitted documents for re-registration.

The new "Law on Parties", which came into force on 11 January this year, drew sharp criticism from many opposition political parties. They believe that the new Law is aimed at limiting political activity and liquidating opposition parties.

Local independent experts in Azerbaijan believe that the newly adopted Law does not meet democratic standards and should be amended.  The CE Venice Commission and the OSCE ODIHR also gave a negative expert opinion to the document.  -03B06-