Chairman of Bar Association Resigns

Baku / 09.09.17 / Turan: The chairman of the Bar Association Azer Taghiyev has resigned for health reasons, the acting head of the Bar Association Farhad Najafov told Turan.

According to him, the election of a new chairman will take place at a conference of the Bar, which will take place either in December 2017 or in January 2018. This is due to the examination of admission of the lawyers to the Bar, which was originally scheduled for October. Now, in connection with the resignation of the chairman, the exam can be postponed to a later date, Najafov said. 1,019 people have applied for the exam.
69-year-old Taghiyev headed the Bar Association, which has remained since the USSR, since 1995. From the same time, Taghiyev has been a member of the Central Election Commission. In 2004, the Bar was formed again in connection with the adoption of the law on advocacy, and Taghiyev retained the post of chairman. At the conference in 2012, Taghiyev was re-elected to the chairman post.
The Bar has a reputation of a government-dependent body. In recent years, a number of well-known lawyers with independent views and an active civil positions, defending people recognized as political prisoners by human rights activists, have been excluded from the Bar. In particular, the lawyer powers of Aslan Ismayilov, Khalid Baghirov, Alaif Hasanov, and Elchin Namazov were terminated. Dismissal was also initiated for a number of other lawyers, but they subsequently managed to recover.
Currently, the Bar includes about 900 lawyers. -05B06--