Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 29 / Trend K.Zarbaliyeva /
The National Action Program on human rights, recently approved by the Azerbaijani President, meets the goals of the country's development strategy, head of department on work with law-enforcement agencies of the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration Fuad Alasgarov said.
"The program is conceptual, scaled, and it should be considered in context of the tasks set by the "Azerbaijan 2020: Looking into the future" development strategy," Alasgarov said in an interview with Azerbaijani media.
Alasgarov added that the protection of human rights is the President's policy priority.
Alasgarov noted that the new program is aimed at improving efficiency of protecting human rights and freedom, developing juridical culture and providing continuous measures to improve the regulatory framework and the human rights system.
Developing the concept of human rights public policy, the National Action Program defines comprehensive measures on various directions, on the mechanism of their fulfillment, coordination, monitoring and impending challenges, Alasgarov underlined.
He said it envisages further development of the rights and freedoms protection, improvement of the legal framework, specific measures to better ensure the rights of various groups of population.
"For example, the program reflects that when adopting legislative acts one should be guided by criteria such as human rights, continue the process of Azerbaijan's joining the international treaties on human rights, adopt new legislative acts, strengthen fight against corruption in the country, increase transparency, closely cooperate with civil society, continue activity in the development of e-services rendered to the population," Alasgarov added.
In addition, under the Program it is planned to continue educational, research and analytical activities in the sphere of human rights, implementation of cooperation programs with international organizations, including the UN agencies specializing in human rights and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, UNESCO, UNICEF, the World Bank, as well as the Council of Europe, the European Union, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and other regional organizations, he said.
A program of cooperation with international organizations, improvement of legislation in various spheres, the requirements of the Guideline for preparation of national action plans of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, as well as case law of the European Court of Human Rights were taken into account in developing the National Action Program, Alasgarov said.
This program also provides specific instructions to state agencies for sustainable implementation of international obligations on human rights, he added.