Lawyer: Azerbaijani Citizens Left without Legal Assistance

Baku / 22.11.18 / Turan: The institution of advocacy and the situation with the legal protection of citizens in Azerbaijan is in a deplorable state, an expert in the field of law Namizad Safarov said.

In an interview with the Azerbaijani service of Voice of America, he noted that by the number of lawyers in relation to the population, Azerbaijan occupies one of the last places in the world.

With 10 million people, there are 1.3 lawyers for every 10 thousand people, while in neighboring Georgia there are 20. In addition, lawyers are concentrated mainly in Baku. There are areas of the country where there are no lawyers at all. In the past, solicitors who were not lawyers could deal with the protection of citizens' rights in districts. It more or less satisfied the needs of the population for legal assistance. However, since 2018 only members of the Bar Association can defend citizens in courts.

Now there are about 1,300 lawyers in the country, of whom 500 have been admitted to the Bar recently and have no experience as lawyers. It takes years for them to become qualified lawyers. Now it is very difficult for people to find lawyers for themselves.

"Restricting the representation of citizens in courts only by lawyers has left people without legal assistance and face to face with the arbitrariness of government officials. About 7 thousand lawyers were excluded from legal protection," Safarov said.

The authorities claimed that the innovation was dictated by an increase in the quality of legal aid. In practice, this has led to an acute shortage of lawyers. In the conditions of shortage, lawyer services rose in price and for the majority of the population they are not available.

Safarov believes that the new rules pursued the goal of "disarming" the population in front of the arbitrariness of state bodies.

For the reform of the Bar system, it is necessary to create an alternative Bar Association. "This is important because in the current situation there is pressure on lawyers with an independent position, and they are excluded from the Bar. The Presidium of the current Bar is busy praising the state concern for the law profession, but in fact the opposite happens - well-known independent lawyers are excluded from the Bar one by one. In recent years, many well-known lawyers - Gurban Mammadov, Aslan Ismayilov, Latif Aliyev, Hidayat Suleymanov, Irada Javadova, Elchin Namazov, Alaif Hasanov, Khalid Bagirov, Ramiz Zeynalov, Muzaffar Bakhyshli, and Yalchin Imanov were excluded from the Bar. This list can be continued. After all this, it is not appropriate to talk about the quality of advocacy," Safarov said.

These are exactly those lawyers who defended political prisoners. These lawyers, as a rule, were punished by the representation of the Prison Service, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, or the Prosecutor General"s Office.

On 4 October, the European Commission on the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) of the Council of Europe published a report on the difficult situation in Azerbaijan, where the lowest state budget is in the judicial system per capita (7.8 euros). This is eight times lower than the average (64.5 euros) and 28 times lower than the maximum rate (Switzerland with 214.8 euros per capita). In addition, Azerbaijan has the lowest per capita legal aid budget (0.06 euros) in Europe. This is more than 100 times lower than the average for Europe - 6.96 euros. Azerbaijan also has the lowest number of lawyers per hundred thousand residents - 9.5, which is 17 times lower than the average in Europe, where there are 162 lawyers per 100,000 inhabitants. -16D06-