Azerbaijan, Baku, July 13 /Trend K.Zarbaliyeva/
The decisions taken by the Constitutional Court, formimportant legal positions aimed at protecting the rights and freedoms of citizens, chairman of the Constitutional Court Farhad Abdullayev said in an interview with Trend on the occasion of the 14th anniversary of the Constitutional Court.
"Commendable is the fact that in most cases the disputes dealt within the courts refers to the decision of the Constitutional Court. The appeals of the courts, whose number is increasing daily, to the Constitutional Court, show once again that the judges of general courts are deeply conscious of the responsibility of making decisions on behalf of the state.
"Therefore, in most cases, the judges halt the production of cases and refer them to the Constitutional Court, trying to get the view of a higher authority on a constitutional review, based on the principles of the Constitution. This fact ultimately acts as a guarantor of making a fair decision in court," the chairman of the court said.
The decisions of the Constitutional Court attach great importance to a number of important international instruments setting forth the rights and freedoms of people. These include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Covenant on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
There is also the experience of the European Court of Human Rights and the constitutional controlling bodies of other countries, the chairman of the court noted. Many decisions of the Constitutional Court reflect the principles of the rule of law, legal certainty, proportionality and balance arising from the essence of a constitutional state which are widely used in the case law of the European Court.
Some 229 decisions were adopted during the period of the Constitutional Court activity, 25 of which were adopted last year and 12 will be adopted till July 14, 2012, Abdullayev said.
"We can say that the Constitutional Court took the relevant decisions on matters relating to all areas of law (civil, administrative, criminal, tax, etc.)," Abdullayev said.
Some 49 cases discussed in the Constitutional Court referred to the criminal, criminal procedure and administrative Of that number 32 were civil, procedural, labour and land law, eight to housing, taxation, customs law and 15 to the right to social security. In addition, the Constitutional Court issued 125 decisions on other areas of law.
Abdullayev said that according to Art. 130 of the Constitution, two decisions on the entities were made upon the Azerbaijani President's inquiry, the Azerbaijani Parliament - one, the Cabinet of Ministers - six, the Supreme Court - 46, Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman) - 10 and the Prosecutor General's Office's request - 24 decisions.
About 39 and 82 decisions respectively were made upon the request of the courts of appeals (the court of the first instance and the court of appeal) and the constitutional complaint.
About 19 decisions of the Constitutional Court were associated with the approval and official announcement of the presidential election results and the verification and approval of the parliamentary election results.
The plenum of the Constitutional Court has today received the appeals of the Supreme Court, the Prosecutor General's Office, the Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman), Baku and Sumgait courts of appeal, the Khazar district court and two constitutional complaints, the chairman of the court said.
Stressing that the decisions of the Constitutional Court are of great importance for the formation of common judicial practice, Abdullayev said that the legal positions in the decisions, along with their individual and subjective nature as a result of long discussions of nine judges include current trends of the European law.
He added that about 1788 appeals and complaints were received in 2011 and 812 complaints and appeals in the first half of this year.
Abdullayev also stressed that the majority of incoming appeals are complaints against judicial acts. The number of these appeals was 991, in 2011 - 694 and in the first half of 2012 - 297.