Azerbaijan, Baku, 17 January / Trend corr. I.Alizadeh / The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has rejected the lists of judge candidates from Azerbaijan once again, Samad Seyyidov, the head of the Azerbaijani Delegation to PACE, reported.
Due to the fact that the document did not meet the necessary requirements, PACE returned the list including the names of the three candidates for the post of judge in the European Court submitted by the Azerbaijani Legal Council,
The candidature of Khanlar Hajiyev, the current judge of Azerbaijan to the European Court, Rashad Hasanov, judge of Azizbayov District of Baku, and Aygun Abdullayev, judge of Nasimi District of Baku, were not accepted by the PACE Subcommittee in Paris.
According to Seyyidov, as the list was returned, the issue on election of the judge proposed by Azerbaijan was not included in the agenda of the winter session of PACE.
Seyyidov said it was wrong to associate the return of the list to any serious problems between Azerbaijan and the Council of Europe. . The list of candidates was returned due to a difference of the characteristic of the candidates for the post of judge. The issue of who will represent Azerbaijan in the European Court will be completed by March 2008.
"The term of the current judge of Azerbaijani to the European Court expires in March. The issue must be settled by March," Seyyidov added. Under the Article of the Convention on Protection of Rights of Human Being, judges must have high ethical values.
Judges are elected every six years on the basis of the list of candidates for the post of judge by the Council of Europe member-countries. The expiry term for a candidate is 70 years old.