Parliamentary Anachronism

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-Alasgar bey, the ruling New Azerbaijan Party put forward an initiative to dissolve the parliament, citing the need to support reforms and renew the composition of the Milli Majlis. Does the ruling party have the power to act on such an initiative?

-From the political point of view, it is natural and possible for New Azerbaijan Party to take some steps to implement its program. From a legal point of view, this cannot be contested. It is a political conjecture that can be evaluated in terms of need. The NAP may make such a policy that it wants to renew its existing lawmakers in parliament. However, any political speech should ultimately be based on an argument. That argument must be grounded. The NAP's argument that “the president is reforming, the parliament is not following these steps” is not a convincing claim, and the public does not accept these claims. Normally, everyone can see that the activities of parliament are usually faster than the president’s. That is, all decisions made by the president are accepted in the parliament without any interrogation, any opposition, even with 100% of votes. Even those 100 percent includes those who mainly say they are neutral. At the same time, even those who have been registered in parliament as opposition parties or other parties have not been opposed or neutral. Consequently, there was no need for such a political decision and was not justified. But generally, if there was such a need, the solution was, first and foremost, as a political party to decide at its congress or in an authorized body. Then the decision would have been presented to the MPs who were their members. Those members of parliament could resign, in part or all, individually to form a legal framework for early parliamentary elections. Those resignations would have been submitted to the National Assembly and after submission to the Central Election Commission, their status of deputyship was revoked by the CEC decision. Thus, the number of MPs needed to make decisions in parliament with a majority of 83 or higher and the parliament’s overall sufficiency would be reduced. In this case, the provisions of Article 98-1 of the Constitution, which gave the president the right to dissolve the parliament, were formed. And this process would be consistent with the Constitution.

-On December 2, the parliament supported the ruling party’s initiative and accepted the relevant appeal to the president. On the same day, the head of state sent a request to the Constitutional Court to check the constitutionality of the parliament’s appeal. The Constitutional Court of Azerbaijan on December 4 confirmed that the appeal of the Milli Majlis to the president of the country with the request to dissolve parliament and to hold early parliamentary elections is consistent with the Constitution. Do you think that everything is happening in accordance with the Constitution or the law?

-There is no legal justification for the decision of the Constitutional Court, and the decision is a political decision. Because the Constitutional Court can make interpretations that are consistent and adhering to all the provisions of the Constitution. The provisions of the Constitution were to check whether the provisions of Article 98-1 relating to the president’s withdrawal from the parliament were present. It was not verified; in contrast, the appeal of the NAP MPs was accepted as sufficient to dissolve the parliament. Just here, again, a matter that was not in the function of the Constitutional Court was discussed. The president did not want it. It was also a matter of preserving the functionality of the parliament generally in case of the dissolution of parliament. This is generally a worthless expression in terms of legal logic. If parliament is to be dissolved because it is useless, then it is not a logical and legal approach to maintain the parliament’s functionality and keep it up to Election Day. It is a separate issue that this creates a crisis. That is right. Because the dissolution of parliament by the president is a violation of the Constitution itself. With the 2016 referendum, a provision was added to the Constitution that gives the president this power. This is the point where it undermines the functionality of parliament. In the present case, it is allegedly linked to Article 111 and 112 of the Constitution. Within 24 hours of the declaration of a state of emergency and martial law under these articles, the president must submit this decision to the Parliament, and the parliament may either approve or reject it. If parliament accepts it, parliament will be dissolved, and if there is no parliament in this situation, a serious public crisis may occur. Moreover, in order to avoid a state crisis, the Constitutional Court made a statement. Existing council decided to continue its assembly and international representation in exceptional necessary cases without adopting law or decision. In other words, it is accepted that parliament is dissolved except for the condition of the right of representation during the winter session of the Council of Europe, scheduled for January. This was contrary to the Constitution both in terms of procedural law and in terms of content.

-How should the procedure actually be? Under what circumstances could the parliament be dissolved in accordance with the Constitution or the law? Or under what circumstances could an early parliamentary election be announced?

-First, in order to dissolve the parliament by the Constitution, there must be a certain political crisis. There should be serious disagreement in parliament. Either the legislative proposals from the President should not be debated in time (usually two months or 20 days in exceptional emergency cases), or the laws that must be submitted within 14 days to be signed by the president should not be sent within that timeframe. In this case, the functionality of the parliament is damaged. Another case is that it is clearly stated in Article 98-1 of the Constitution. This includes disapproval of the prime minister nominated by the president more than twice during the vote, or disapproval of the chairman of the Central Bank and the Attorney General. These are the cases explicitly stated in the Constitution. In the present situation, there is no political situation, that is, from the point of view of functionality, it does not reject or delay the proposals of the President. Neither is it a legal condition. In this regard, the declaration of early parliamentary elections was not possible within the legal framework. But it happened.

-Why was it necessary to dissolve the parliament, to hold early elections in such a hurry? Why the government does this?

 -Taken together, a little over 9 months has left to announce a new election. The reason for such a move without waiting for these 9 months, this reason disclosed to the public is not valid. Because, as it has been said, if the parliament failed to follow the president's steps, then the chairman of the parliament, Oktay Asadov, would have made more than 1,700 decisions and laws during the year. This is a record indeed. It is not a valid argument for a parliament, which has signed such a record, to say that any reform is undermined. This is rather process that is being prepared for the change of power at the highest level. It is no secret that many of the top government officials have already been sent. This includes the head of the presidential administration and the head of the socio-political department. At the same time, the role of people in other important posts has diminished in society. Although there was no such formal provision in the previous parliament, virtually everyone knew that parliamentary representation was formed more in accordance with the representation of oligarchs in society. It is not desirable for persons indirectly approved by those persons, who are fired, dismissed, or removed from administration, to sit in Parliament. It is already considered that representatives of the new team will be seated in the parliament. Because, when parliament is formed, public participation is the less important issue. The election results mainly by presenting ready lists from the top and the formation of elections by CEC in a nontransparent and unlawful manner according to the list. This also shows that in the near future, the highest change will take place, and the formation of parliament in accordance with one’s wishes is politically motivated. And it happens.

-In general, could the parliament not really be able to keep up with the process?

-As I said, MPs, who were “representatives” of dismissed officials (they were majority in most cases), may not want the process in a long-term. It is true that they formally follow the president again and his policy of change or displacement. However, maybe their desires and wishes inside them are not in that direction. At least they build confidence here, at least. Because parliament is, after all, an important institution. And parliament has the power to impeach the president. In that case, the parliament may at any time cause a high-level boycott of the government or certain problems. If the crowd there is an unwanted crowd, it probably played a role in the dissolution of parliament.

-What do you expect from this election? Can a parliament be formed following the steps taken by the ruling party, the government? And what are your expectations from that parliament?

-I do not expect any major change from this election from neither a procedural nor a fundamental point of view although it is not formal. This is because the current election is carried out by the same Election Code adopted in 2003 and by Election Commissions formed in 2005. Virtually the same executive judges, the same police structure, the same security structure and the same political team go to the polls. So how can that expectation be shaped so that the election will be different? There is no step to making such an impulse. Even when the last 1-2 months process is investigated, the October 19 events and the picket attempts with regard to the free assembly before and after the event and political activities made it very clear that there is no change in the government’s specific focus on competitors and political struggle. Quite the contrary, it is more aggressive. It was not so aggressive before. Even if we look at the president’s recent speeches in 2-3 weeks, he has used hate speech more often on the opposition. This also shows that the change is not positive, even it is negative. If we look at parliament's steps towards the government's steps, we will see that the ruling party takes no steps. The party is not in the process. There is only the presentation and execution of changes at the highest level, at the level of the president or vice-president. Nevertheless, it is clear that they did not even consult the party. The recent disclosures of the party’s key functionaries indicate that the party is not in the process. Arif Rahimzade recently protested in Parliament, saying, “Are we in vain, that we should dissolve ourselves” and seriously disputed it, while Oktay Asadov seemed to have calmed him down, but at the same time, insinuated that the parliament is keeping up with the processes and the fact that it has passed over 1,700 bills a year proves this. It just plays a role of formal train in its formalization. But these processes are not formed by the party. There is no clue to indicate this. If the newly formed parliament is not formed in a fair and equitable manner, the commissions are not pursued by an objective electoral system, and if the election norms and standards are not generally formed within the requirements of the OSCE observation mission, the Venice Commission, I do not think that the parliament that will be formed from there will create big expectations in any form.