Discussions in parliament are uncontested - report

Baku/09.06.22/Turan: The Meclis.info parliamentary monitoring platform presented on Thursday a “Report on the activities of the Milli Majlis”.

The platform monitors legislative activities, procedures, relations between the legislative and executive authorities, cooperation with civil society, etc. The report also includes a number of statistical data. Thus, out of 118 deputies, 96 are men (81%), 22 are women (19%).

Despite the speaker of parliament is a woman, women  chair only two of the 15 committees. "The absolute dominance of men negatively affects not only the legislative power, but also the representation of women in the socio-political life of the country," the report says.

An analysis of the transcripts of the meetings shows that the discussions take place without the expression of alternative opinions characteristic of democratic parliamentarism, and the bills do not arouse any oppositional views.

Parliamentary committees or working groups do not provide information to the public about drafting laws. Only after completion of work on the bill, their texts are posted on the website of the Milli Majlis, which prevents public opinion in the process of preparing these documents.

The report also states that the average age of MPs is 55 years. The oldest, Ziya Samdezade, is 81 years old, and the youngest, Sabina Khasayeva, is 28 years old.

The report also assesses the degree of deputies' openness to the media, their activity, etc. The parliamentary monitoring platform "Meclis.info" is a public initiative of a group of civil activists. -21D06-