Nakhchivan

On January 12th, Baku Administrative-Economic Court # 1  postponed court proceedings on the lawsuit filed by the Human Rights Monitoring in the Regions NGO against the Azerbaijani Justice Ministry, when the defendant failed to attend the hearing. The next session was  scheduled  for January 30th at 12.15. The case is based on the Justice Ministry’s refusal to register the organization, providing dubious legal grounds, reported IRFS correspondent to Nakhchivan and the chairman of the NGO, Elman Abbasov.

Abbasov said that Justice Ministry sent the the rejection letter not to the offical address of the office, but to his private home.  The letter says that according to Article 10.3 of the law “On Non-government organizations (public unions and foundations)”, of the  Republic of Azerbaijan, non-government organization members have the right to file an appeal against the termination of  membership, and send this appeal to the  board of directors and the court. This right is determined by this law.” However,  it goes on to say, Human Rights Monitoring in the Regions has violated the Article in question; its regulations fail to guarantee  the right to appeal against termination of the membership and to send it to the board of directors. On this basis, the Ministry refused to officially  register the organization.

“ The documents for the public union’s registration were prepared by lawyers. We are surprised by their response; the shortcomings mentioned by the Justice Ministry  are not true. Theright to appeal to the board of directors in case of termination of membership is provided by Article 5.3 in our Charter,” said Abbasov.

Human Rights Monitoring in the Regions Public Union was founded on May 5th 2010. Soon after its establishment,  it sent the registration documents to the Justice Ministry. The Ministry destroyed the receipt for the state tax that they had paid. Then the Ministry refused to register the organization on the grounds that there was no receipt for this tax.  The NGO paid again, and obtained a new receipt, and resent the application. Despite of a series of appeals, the ministry denied registration, and moreover refused to answer the NGO’s information inquiries.  The current lawsuit is based on the failed October 8th 2011 application for legal registration.