Number of people sentenced to imprisonment at lowest level in Azerbaijan

Baku, Azerbaijan, May 31

By Samir Ali – Trend:

The new approaches are being applied as part of the reforms being carried out under the leadership of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Vusal Isayev, head of the department for work with law enforcement bodies and military issues of the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration, said.

Isayev made the remarks at the conference entitled “A Lawyer's Look at Legal and Legal Reforms” in Baku on May 31, Trend reports.

“Favorable conditions will be created for the development of the bar institution thanks to these approaches,” he added. “The memorandum signed by the ASAN Service with the Bar Association creates conditions for rendering better legal services.”

"As a result, both Baku and the country’s districts will be more covered with legal assistance,” Isayev said. “According to the Azerbaijani president’s decree dated April 3, 2019, the instructions were given to humanize the policy of punishment. The projects will be developed in this sphere.”

“Such instructions were not made for the first time,” he said. “This is another act of the humanistic policy. The order was signed by the president in connection with humanization in February 2017 and up to 300 changes were made to the legislation."

In general, a comprehensive assessment was made and reforms were carried out,” Isayev said. “Today the results are obvious. These changes were applied to about 14,000 people. About 9,000 people’s charges were dropped during the investigation or trial, 800 of them avoided imprisonment. I think that it is necessary to continue to carry out the reforms.”

He stressed that there is a new vision of the punishment policy, and, as a result, the number of people sentenced to imprisonment in Azerbaijan is at the lowest level.

“The decree on civil proceedings contains a number of instructions and recommendations,” Isayev said. “They include both the training of specialized lawyers and the revision of civil procedural legislation.”

“The Civil Procedure Code was adopted 20 years ago and it should be improved,” he said. “The individuals using the code in their daily activity notice gaps and points which should be improved. It will be good if lawyers voice their recommendations. We are waiting for that."

Isayev also stressed that according to the decree, special attention is paid to extrajudicial measures and operational methods.

"The important steps have been recently taken in this sphere,” he said. “The establishment of the Board of Appeals in 2016 can be cited as an example. As a result of appeals to the Board in 2018, both its activity and the results of the consideration of appeals have greatly improved. This is an important indicator."