Reforms in the judicial and law enforcement areas and ensuring transparency of elections will be one of the priorities of the cooperation between Azerbaijan and the Council of Europe. General Director of the Council of Europe Strategic Planning Department Jean-Louis Laurens visited Baku last week to discuss prospects for cooperation between Azerbaijan and the CE.(30 July 2004)

 

Negotiations

“Legal analysis is a part of the aid to fair and transparent elections,” Laurens told a press conference following his negotiations with the Azerbaijani authorities last Friday. “As new areas of cooperation, we have discussed Azerbaijan’s joining to the New Neighborhood concept of the European Union, as the carrying out of this concept opens up new avenues for our cooperation,” Laurens said.

Political prisoner issue under focus

He said that among other issues his talks with Azeri government officials addressed Azerbaijan’s compliance with its commitments to the European Union on the so-called political prisoners problem. The Azerbaijani authorities assured me that this issue will be resolved before October,” Laurens said. He said that the latest list of political prisoners in Azerbaijan produced by Council of Europe experts initially included 104 people. After an expert analysis, 55 people from that list were not recognized as political prisoners and 32 were released by a presidential decree. The cases of 11 people will be reconsidered in court and those of two more are currently being heard in court. As for four other prisoners, the Council of Europe experts found criminally punishable motives for imprisonment along with political motives. Underlining that the CE has compiled a textbook about the history of South Caucasus countries, Laurens said the book provides Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity in accordance with international legal norms.

Election code on agenda


Laurens said in a Friday meeting with Samad Seyidov, chairman of the permanent parliamentary commission on international relations that he expects Azerbaijan’s parliamentary elections in 2005 to be more democratic and fair. “These elections are very important from the viewpoint of fulfilling the country’s commitments made to the CE,” Laurens said and noted that it was necessary to improve the Election Code. Laurens also underlined that the CE will present the final document on political prisoners in Azerbaijan to the country’s authorities.

New CE project


Laurens told a news conference on Friday that the Council of Europe (CE) is developing a new project with a view to expand cooperation with Azerbaijan. He noted that the project to be developed in August, will be a continuation of another program entitled “Preventing conflicts in South Caucasus and encouraging democratic stability”. The new project envisions stepping up independence in the activity of the court system and improving the knowledge of law-enforcement workers.