Press Review 15/12/2016

Azerbaijan-Israeli relations, withdrawal of foreign companies from Azerbaijan, insubordination of banks to the Financial Markets Supervision House (FMSH), and the lack of an independent judiciary in the country are the leading topics of today's press.

The Azerbaijan newspaper writes about Azerbaijani-Israeli relations, the presence of which plays a crucial role in terms of ensuring national interests. The author writes about tolerance in Azerbaijan and cooperation with Israel in all fields. The author writes about the latest visit to Baku of the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, analyzing the visit in terms of bilateral relations.

The website Azadliq.info says that foreign companies are leaving Azerbaijan. The author explains this with the fact that, thanks to the authorities, Azerbaijan becomes a junk country for foreign companies. Five more companies have left Azerbaijan, and it seems that the economic situation becomes unfavorable to business development - corruption and monopolization are rampant, investments are reduced, reforms are not carried out, the non-oil sector is not developed, there is a decline in all areas and problems with currency. There is no incentive for the creation of businesses in Azerbaijan.

Yeni Musavat writes of disobedience of banks to FMSH. Banks do not respond to the calls of the House. The expert Akram Hasanov explains this fact, saying that banks do not depend on the House to the extent that the Central Bank does. Previously, banks were very dependent on the Central Bank, which controlled the banks, giving loans and currency to them. Now these powers are divided between the Central Bank and the House, and thus the dependence of banks decreased. As for the House, it is not an entirely formed structure with the presence of internal problems, including staffing. The expert Natig Jafarli believes that some banks accept the authority of the Central Bank, while some others obey FMSH. To raise the authority, it is necessary to increase the powers, the expert says.

Novoye Vremya has published an article entitled "Independent justice as a starting point of progress." The author tells about the trip of the Minister of Justice Fikrat Mammadov to Strasbourg and his meeting with the chairman of the European Court, Guido Raimondi. At the meeting, Mammadov informed ton he strengthening of the independence of judges and judicial infrastructure modernization, and application of the system of electronic courts.

Raimondi noted with interest that he greeted the reform of the judicial system in Azerbaijan and emphasized the importance of effective and fair trial and the independence of the judiciary, which is essential in Europe. He said that Azerbaijan, focusing on the implementation of decisions of the European Court, is not in a number of countries of concern in this area, and spoke about the reform of the European Court, and a substantial reduction in the load on it, compared to previous years. The impartiality of judges should be manifested particularly in politically motivated trials. But these trials still unfortunately occur; so it is not visible yet. In this connection, the statement by the President of the European Court of Human Rights is surprising. He is really the one who should have been aware of the customs prevailing in the judicial system of Azerbaijan. So we cannot assume that today's reforms lead to the independence of the judiciary.