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Azerbaijan, after gaining independence, has carried out fundamental reforms of the legal system. These reforms, while serving to the establishment of the real democratic society based on national, cultural, and historical traditions of Azerbaijani people, were mainly aimed at greater ensuring human rights.
The first democratic Constitution of the State was developed in compliance with democratic values and principles and adopted via nation-wide voting in 1995. One third of provisions of the Constitution is devoted to human rights and freedoms as well as to establishing the principle of division of powers. This Constitution has been highly evaluated by international experts as one of the most democratic constitutions in the world. It paved the sound base for the development of democracy and Rule of Law in Azerbaijan and set up conditions for implementation of legal reforms.
Judicial-legal reforms carried out under the leadership of the national leader Mr. Heydar Aliyev have completely re-established the legal system of the country, which was inherited form the Soviet Union, subject to democratic principles.
Implementation of the reforms resulted in profound changes in the legal system followed by adoption of new advanced Laws On Constitutional Court, On Courts and Judges, On Prosecutor's Office, On the Police, On Operative-Research Activity and other laws. Moreover, newly adopted Civil and Civil Procedure, Criminal and Criminal Procedure Codes, Code on Execution of Punishments and other codes are completely different from the previous ones. The aforesaid laws and codes led to the drastic changes in the legal system of the country as a whole. All these acts were developed in line with democratic principles and provisions of international law and highly evaluated by international experts.
 The reform of the legal system paved the way for setting up a new three-tier independent judiciary to be comprised of courts of first, appellate and cassation instances.
Presently, the city (district) courts, military and local economic courts that are operating subject to territorial jurisdiction as well as court on grave crimes and military court on grave crimes are performing their functions in the Republic of Azerbaijan as courts of first instance.
The Courts of Appeal and Economic Courts of the Republic of Azerbaijan are operating as courts of appellate instance. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court stands as a court of cassation instance.
 The Court of Appeal tries appeals lodged onto the decisions of the first instance courts on civil, criminal, administrative and military matters. Whereas the Economic Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan stands as an appellate instance for the local economic courts.
The Supreme Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan that is operating as a cassation instance court consists of 4 collegiums: On Civil Cases, On Criminal Cases, On Cases Of Military Courts and On Economic Dispute Cases. The Supreme Court hears cassation appeals on the decisions of the appellate courts.
The issue of further development of the judiciary is being constantly on the agenda in our country. The judicial reforms, following Presidential Decree On Modernization of the Judicial System of 19 January 2006, have moved into the substantially next level.
According to the Decree, with a view to strengthening the effectiveness of the administration of justice, facilitating the people's ability to apply to courts and developing the regions of the country, new courts, including new regional appellate courts have been established. Furthermore, it provided for measures to be carried out in order to increase the number of judges and improve the courts functioning, build up newly legally established courts, to ameliorate the structure and operation of the judicial apparatus as well as to establish the Supreme School of Justice.
Pursuant to a new judicial system, courts of appeal shall be operating in 6 regions of the country and consequently the current appeal and economic courts will cease to exist. The new Courts of Appeal, while consisting of 4 collegiums: On Civil Cases, On Criminal Cases and Cases On Administrative Infringements, On Cases Of Military Courts and On Economic Dispute Cases, will operate subject to appropriate territorial jurisdiction.
The landlocked location and blockade of an aggressor - the Republic of Armenia were taken into account whilst organizing the Courts of the Autonomous Republic of Nakhchivan, which are a part of the Judiciary of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Thus, the Supreme Court of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic stands as an appellate instance for the courts of the Autonomous Republic. The Supreme Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan hears in cassation appeals from the decisions of the Supreme Court of the Autonomous Republic of Nakhchivan.
 The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan, being the highest constitutional justice body, maintains the supremacy of the Constitution of Azerbaijan as well as of the rights and freedoms of everyone. Alongside this, the Law on Constitutional Court of 23 December 2003 adopted within the framework of ongoing reforms provided for the citizen's right to apply directly to the Constitutional Court on matters related to their violated rights and freedoms.
Within the framework of measures on strengthening the efficiency of administration of justice one should stress the particular importance of the two Laws On Amendments to the Law On Courts and Judges and On Judicial Legal Council which were drafted in close co-operation with the Council of Europe and came into effect last year.
According to the said Laws, which meet international norms and principles, the Judicial Legal Council being mainly comprised of judges also includes representatives of the President, Milli Madjlis (Parliament), Prosecutor's Office, Bar Association and other individuals. The Minister of Justice Mr. Fikrat Mammadov was elected the Chairman of Judicial-Legal Council for the period of 2.5 years.
According to the new legislation the immunity and term of office of judges have been re-considered,  life-appointment of judges was introduced and the right to institute disciplinary proceedings against judges was delegated directly to the Judicial Legal Council. Furthermore, pursuant to the aforesaid laws in order to select candidates to a judicial post a new unit named Judges Selection Committee was established. Alongside this, amongst other measures a long-lasting training of candidates following special curricula, subject to advanced international experience, has been provided.
On 18 September 2005 for the first time 1048 applicants to judges posts faced test as well as written and oral exams subject to the new selection rules. In accordance with the Council of Europe recommendations all levels of the examination process, i.e. selection of questions, printing test questionnaires, immediately checking answers and announcement of results were held in participation of candidates in the same auditorium the same day. The examination process was observed by more than 30 representatives of international and non-governmental organisations as well as by mass media. Being the first in the history of our country, this event was assessed by the international observers as a very transparent process and they noted that they would like to see such process in many developed countries as well.
 56 successful candidates gained a right to take part in the long-standing training. The curricula of this five-months training was developed using modern educational methods with participation of international experts, so that candidates could be able to obtain necessary knowledge. The curricula includes such topics as, inter alia, human rights, combating corruption, judicial ethics, judges' conduct, effective organisation of courts functioning and defines the internship in various court instances. Higher court judges, well known scholars, experts with rich knowledge and practice, as well as foreign specialists as Professor Spriridon Flogaitis, Director of European Public Law Centre, Professor Rolf Knipper, Head of the Project on Legal reforms in newly independent countries of German Technical Assistance Society, Mr. Patrcik Judge of the Court of Appeal of France read lectures at the courses organised at the MoJ Legal Training Centre. Furthermore, meetings were held with Mr. Thomas Hammerberg, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, Mr. Khanlar Hajiyev, Judge of European Human Rights Court.
Subject to the results of the exam and interview to be held upon completion of the course the issue of appointment of  these persons to the judicial posts will be considered.
The judicial legal reforms are also supported by outstanding international financial institutions. Thus, the World Bank, which highly evaluates the achievements obtained shortly due to the said reforms, following the initiative of the Ministry of Justice has initiated a launch of a joint project "On Modernization of the Justice Sector".
The United States Agency on International Development created an electronic legal act database in order to raise legal awareness of population of hundreds of new laws, decrees and other legal acts, adopted within the judicial legal reforms that are under way in our country. The Ministry of Justice was entrusted with the maintenance of the mentioned database.
Due to the judicial legal reforms that are under way in our country the role of the Prosecutor's Office which is a part of the judiciary has also been changed and its activity has been brought in line with international norms and requirements of democratic institutions. Consequently, according to the Law On Prosecutor's Office of 1999 the prosecutor's office was deprived of a number of authorities which it used to have in the past. Thus, its authority to authorize arrests has been transmitted to the competence of courts and the prosecutorial supervision over the court activity was ceased to exist. Currently, Prosecutor's service of the Republic of Azerbaijan being an independent agency institutes and investigates criminal cases, implements procedural supervision over pre-trial investigation, supervises observance of laws by investigation and search authorities, upholds public prosecution and brings claims for public interest protection in civil cases.
 Along with that, a particular attention is being paid in our country to combating globally-spread problem - corruption. Thus, the relevant Law was passed; Sate Programme on Combating Corruption has been approved by the President and Anti-Corruption Commission under the Public Service Management Council was established. One of the important steps in this regard was the establishing the special Anti-Corruption Department within the General Prosecutor's Office.
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Copyright Ədliyyə Nazirliyi All Rights Reserved 2003 |
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