Written by HRH/Shahla Ismailova with the extracts from the report “Countries at the Crossroads 2006”, Freedom House.
“Azerbaijan´s judiciary is corrupt, inefficient, and politicized. It suffers from a number of critical deficiencies, including heavy influence on its work from the executive branch…The poor conduct of the election process is in essence a symptom of far deeper and fundamental challenges confronting the country. The source of the problem rests in an entrenched political culture that retains Soviet-era governance features, among them flawed institutions incapable of achieving sufficient levels of accountability” says the country report of Freedom House. (22-AUG-2006)
The Freedom House, released the country report 2006, where determines Azerbaijan as an energy rich country with poor human rights and liberties records. The report, providing the detailed overview of the political situation of Azerbaijan ends with a number of recommendations, directed to the improvement of the situation and better involvement of state and non-state actors into the process of democratization. Below are the extracts from the report, but the link to the full text is given at the bottom of the article.
Challenges
Azerbaijan´s principal challenge in the near term is to identify a course to enable genuine political reform and to open the country´s now tightly controlled institutions to more democratic participation. In this regard, the November 2005 parliamentary elections and the presidential elections in October 2003 are emblematic of the profound institutional challenges that confront the country. These two flawed elections also represent the political bookends of the Ilham Aliyev era to date.
Elections
International observers and reformers in Azerbaijan looked to the parliamentary elections of 2005 as a potential turning point in Azeri politics. However, these elections, like the presidential ballot of November 2003, were beset by irregularities and failed to meet international standards.
Azerbaijan´s constitution assures its citizens the right to change their government peacefully. However, in practice this right is effectively denied. Indeed, all of the elections conducted under the stewardship of former president Heidar Aliyev and more recently under his son, Ilham Aliyev, have fallen short of international standards for democratic elections. The parliamentary elections held in November 2005 were no exception.
The obstacles to free and fair elections are manifold. Opposition parties are at a severe disadvantage in terms of resources. The authorities use the full complement of state administrative resources to advance the interests of the ruling YAP, systematically denying the opportunity for political opposition to reach a competitive threshold. The November parliamentary vote represents a case in point.
Judiciary
Azerbaijan´s judiciary is corrupt, inefficient, and politicized. It suffers from a number of critical deficiencies, including heavy influence on its work from the executive branch. These realities have the practical effect of denying average citizens access to justice. Due to the pivotal role of the judiciary in ensuring that the rule of law prevails in day-to-day life, its weakness and lack of independence also has a spillover impact on other key sectors of Azeri society. Judicial corruption and poor administration, for example, have aroused the concern of Azerbaijan´s business community, which increasingly see these deficiencies as serious impediments to business development.
Civil society
Given the heavy hand of the state in so much of Azeri life, one of the spheres that could help in the larger democratic reform effort is civil society. Here, too, however, the authorities have taken an adversarial posture. Azerbaijani law prohibits nongovernmental groups from taking part in political activity, and, more generally, the civic sector is not able to influence public affairs or policy choices in a significant and consistent manner.
NGOs continue to face serious problems in registering with the Ministry of Justice. A joint assessment report prepared by the International Monetary Fund and the International Development Association, however, recognized progress in the consultative process among a number of communities in discussing poverty reduction. At the same time, the assessment report stressed the need to institutionalize this behavior and to make it a regular and integral part of policy formulation in the country.
Media
Azerbaijan´s media sector also confronts major obstacles. Authorities use a variety of tools to manipulate and intimidate the press. State businesses in Azerbaijan, for example, do not advertise in opposition newspapers. A private business with interests in state contracts in an economy still dominated by the state will usually decide that caution is wiser than advertising in such publications. Publications not aligned with the authorities must obey the rules of state-owned printing facilities. Distribution of opposition publications outside the capital city of Baku is often obstructed. The court system is subordinated to the executive, and therefore journalists, editors, and publishers do not have consequential legal recourse.
Journalists are also subject to physical abuse, risking death. In March 2005, Elmar Huseinov, editor at the opposition magazine Monitor, was gunned down in the stairwell of his apartment building in Baku. Why he was killed and by whom is unclear. The whole story behind the murder of this opposition journalist may never be known, but the case, with its opaque investigation and doubts about the vigor with which it is being pursued, is emblematic of the difficult environment for the press in Azerbaijan.
The full text of the report is available at Freedom House Website
