Roman Funa, Council, a representative of the Council of Europe (CE), informed journalists on 28 September that the Council of Europe and the European Commission have, since January 2006, carried out half the 50 activities and their Joint Program on Penitentiary reform in Azerbaijan.
The program is implemented by the Council of Europe in co-operation with the Azerbaijani Ministry of Justice, and in particular, its Penitentiary Service.
The overall objective of this program is to mediate the prison system of Azerbaijan based on the rule of law and respect of common European democratic values and standards.
This joint program pursues initiatives for legislative reforms and for strengthening the prison system in accordance with European standards in line with the Council of Europe recommendations.
The program is designed to help improve the Azerbaijani Penitentiary Service, thereby benefiting both prisons and the public of large. This project deals with 4 specific objectives including enhancing legal reform, improving the management of the Prison Services, supporting the Prison Training Center and improving the system for prisoners' rehabilitation.
Faig Gurbanov, the division head at the Justice Ministry told a news conference that the Azerbaijani Government praises the cooperation with the CE in the sphere of improvement of the activities of the penitentiary system. Within the framework of the program experts prepared a report on reconsideration of articles of the existing legislation in this sphere, their unification to international legislation. Azerbaijan is ready to ready to cooperate with these organizations in the sphere of humanization of juridical system, he added.