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On June 23, 2015 during the Summer Session (22-26 June), the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a resolution based on the report made by the co-rapporteurs Pedro Agramunt (Spain) and Tadeusz Iwiński (Poland) “The functioning of democratic institutions in Azerbaijan.” During the debate, amendments were introduced into the text regarding the Karabakh conflict wording. The report condemns the democracy situation in Azerbaijan. 140 deputies voted in favor of the document, 13 were against it and eight abstented.

“Dear colleagues, moments ago as a result of PACE voting, the words “The Assembly is fully aware of the occupation by Armenia of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven other provinces of Azerbaijan” were changed into “The Assembly is fully aware of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.” The justice is still breathing,” the Armenian representative to PACE, Arpine Hovhannisyan, wrote on her Facebook page.

In her speech in PACE, Hovhannisyan spoke against the usage of such wording pointing to the fact that neither the OSCE Minsk Group, the mediator of Karabakh conflict settlement, nor even the European Court of Human Rights, which recently ruled in favor of an Azerbaijani refugee, used the words occupation or annexation. In this regard, she viewed the inclusion of such wording into the given document as an attempt to settle the Karabakh conflict distracting the attention from the main issue, the democracy problems, addressed in the report.

The appropriateness of mentioning Karabakh conflict in the text and revising the first paragraph, which refers to the conflict, was more than once raised during the debate. In particular, the French representative Mme Duranton highlighted that Azerbaijan used the Karabakh issue very well to justify its problems in democratization, and Ms Beck from Germany said that the Karabakh issue must not become Azerbaijan’s “alibi”.

In his speech, Agramunt reported on being subjected to insults, attacks and libel while making the report. He said he would never think that one could go so far. Iwiński added that it was likely the most difficult report he had ever made. They met lawyers, civil society representatives in Baku, and visited two prisons. Iwiński mentioned the names of the arrested human rights defenders Rasul Jafarov, Intigam Aliyev, Faraj Karimov, Arif and Leyla Yunuses, whose daughter Dinara was present at the hearing.

The president of the fraction Unified European Left, Mr Kox, urged to immediately release those who were not supposed to be in jail. Democratic Party member Mr Corsini said that the rules of the game existing in Europe are not applied in Azerbaijan. The issue of closing down the OSCE Baku office was also discussed. In this regard, Mr Nikoloski said that it is a bad decision irrespective its motives. Ms Finckh-Kramer from Germany stressed that they visit Azerbaijan as election monitors, and the monitoring mission cannot work responsibly without OSCE bureau. Ms Schou (Norway) called on the Assembly to pressure on Azerbaijan and added that people should not be jailed for their opinions. Ms Beck, the German deputy, said that the civil society is increasingly in fear.

According to the resolution published on PACE website, the Azerbaijani institutional structure grants particularly strong powers to the President of the Republic and the executive. In addition, the Constitution limits the competences of the parliament, and not all opposition forces are represented there, which is detrimental to true political dialogue and effective parliamentary oversight. Moreover, as the opposition in Azerbaijan is very divided and opposition candidates are often competing against each other, they thus weaken each other.

PACE reminds that in November 2015, Azerbaijan will hold parliamentary elections. The Assembly regrets that some of the most important recommendations of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission), such as those regarding the composition of the electoral commissions and candidate registration, have not been addressed.

The resolution notes that the lack of independence of the judiciary remains a concern in Azerbaijan, where the executive branch is alleged to continue to exert undue influence. “Dubiously motivated criminal prosecutions and disproportionate sentences remain a concern. Fairness of trials, equality of arms and respect for the presumption of innocence are other major concerns. The Assembly is concerned about the use of pre-trial detention as a means of punishing individuals for criticizing the government,” the document reads.

Further, the Assembly notes the strict control of NGOs by State authorities is likely to interfere with the right to freedom of association. In this regard, the Assembly condemns the crackdown on human rights in Azerbaijan where working conditions for NGOs and human rights defenders have significantly deteriorated and some prominent and recognized human rights defenders, civil society activists and journalists are behind bars. The Assembly calls on the Azerbaijani authorities to ensure objective trials of the cases of the detained people.

“The Assembly is deeply concerned about the increasing number of reprisals against independent media and advocates of freedom of expression in Azerbaijan. In this regard, it deplores the arbitrary application of criminal legislation to limit freedom of expression, in particular the reported recent use of different criminal laws against journalists and bloggers, and recommends taking necessary measures to ensure a genuinely independent and impartial review by the judiciary of cases involving journalists and others expressing critical voices,” the resolution reads.

The Assembly is alarmed by reports by human rights defenders and international NGOs, confirmed by the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, about the intensification of the practice of the criminal prosecution of NGO leaders, journalists, their lawyers and others who express critical opinions, based on the use of alleged charges in relation to their work, especially human rights lawyer Intigam Aliyev; head of an election monitoring group Anar Mammadli; veteran activist Leyla Yunus and her husband Arif Yunus; founder of the “Sports for Rights” campaign Rasul Jafarov and journalists Khadija Ismayilova and Rauf Mirgadirov. “The Assembly calls on the authorities to end the systemic harassment of those critical of the government and to release those wrongfully detained,” the resolution says.

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