Azerbaijan, Baku, 29 October / corr Trend K.Zarbaliyeva / Azerbaijani courts satisfy the majority of petitions on choosing preventive punishment in form of arrest, the report on work, which was realized by Committee of Lawyers on Human Rights on 15 May within the frames of Monitoring of Equality of Parties in Criminal Procedure, told.
Under the document, the courts satisfied all 540 petitions, which were appealed by the bodies of the Public Prosecutor's Office, in connection with choosing of preventive punishment in form of arrest, and six petitions were replaced with other preventive punishments within six months.
In one case, the prosecution protested the court's verdict and appellate instance satisfied the protest.
The defender declared a claim on seven sentences, with six of them were rejected and one was satisfied.
33 inquiries, which were examined by courts, related to the crimes, not posing a large public danger, 363 - to less serious crimes, 126 -to serious and 24 - to especially serious ones.
The monitoring was realized in 52 regional (city) military courts within five last months and this process continues at present.
Muzaffar Agazade, judge of the Supreme Court, is worried over the high percentage of cases of choosing of preventive punishment in the form of arrest. "Courts accept the decrees on arrest, when it is not required. After the authority was handed over to judges, their number could be reduced. However, unfortunately, this index did not change," Agazade said.
"Courts do not ground their decrees upon pronouncing of the judgments on arrest. Heaviness of crime is not ground to arrest. The preventive punishment in the form of arrest is chosen, as a rule, concerning the cases, which are directed to the courts by the administration on struggle against organized criminality of the Interior Ministry," he said.
"In order to sentence a man to imprisonment, well-grounded arguments on law violation, which was committed by him, are necessary. Only in this case, the arrest of man is considered enough grounded and legal. Deprivation of freedom should not based on feeling and instinct," Vafaeddin Ibayev, judge of Supreme court, said.
Application of case-law by the European Court in connection with choosing of preventive punishment in the form of arrest by local courts creates certain problems. Courts neither informed of experience of European court on this issue nor does Public Prosecutor's Office put pressure on the court to make biased decree, Rashi Gajili, lawyer, said.
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