Consistent and purposeful reforms were carried out in our country in 2018 in accordance with the development conception founded by the national leader Heydar Aliyev. A number of laws have been amended and new standard legal acts have been adopted to improve the local self-government, by keeping in the center of attention the problems of development of municipalities having place in public administration.
These thoughts were expressed by the vice-minister of justice Vilayat Zahirov at the plenary session of Milli Majlis during the speech with annual report about realization of administrative supervision over the activity of the municipalities.
Deputy Minister said that several rights and duties were defined for municipalities in the Law "On Environmental Impact Assessment" and "On Employment". “The rules of giving information about real estate state registry and amount of payment with relate to it on the basis of written or electronic inquiries of the municipalities” approved by the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Azerbaijan on September 26, 2018 shall include the possibility of receiving information on the taxation of real estate and its owners by municipalities and registration of property taxpayers and increase of opportunities to collect taxes.
The duties and rights of the municipalities in the field of establishment, management, protection, transfer of cemeteries are defined in the "Guidelines for establishment and management of cemeteries" approved by the Decision of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Azerbaijan on December 4, 2018.
There was held enlightenment measures with relate to execution of the event about “Increase of responsibilities of the municipalities on social and economic development of the village” considered by the Measures Plan of the “Strategic Road Map for production and processing of agricultural products in the Republic of Azerbaijan” approved by the Decree of the President on December 6, 2016 and 7 pilot municipalities were elected for the purpose of establishment of village’s development model. The book "Participation of municipalities in the organization of local tourism", prepared jointly with the German International Cooperation Society (GIZ), was sent to the municipalities and “a collection of documents related to municipalities' participation in entrepreneurship development” was published and other measures were undertaken.
72535 municipal acts on the country passed legal expertise (12% more than last year). 69775 (96%) of which were considered to be in compliance with the legislation, and proposals were made to relevant municipalities (21.5% more than in the previous year) for the replacement or cancellation of 2403 acts that did not meet the standard legal acts. 979 acts were annulled by municipalities, 1031 acts were ammended and the remaining 384 proposals are under consideration. And
there were raised claims in the courts on 9 proposals which were not accepted. Four claims were provided by the court and municipal acts were annulled and 5 claims are under consideration. Illegal allocation of 5921 ha of land was prevented during the year (2.2 times more than last year).
Because of non-presentation of municipal acts for expertise in time, there were drawn up protocols on administrative offenses about 143 officials of the municipalities according to the Administrative Offense Code and sent to the courts (46 percent more than last year). 1988 appeals off the 2247 appeals entered with relate to activity of municipalities were considered in accordance with the requirements of the legislation. 141 of them were sent on referral and 118 appeals are under consideration. And 82 appeals were provided (62 percent more than last year).
In spite of the progress achieved, some municipalities have been subjected to deficiencies and irregularities. Collected materials were sent to prosecuting authorities for legal assessment as there was discovered the evidence of a criminal offense in 26 investigations. There was raised criminal case on 18 of these materials and others are under consideration.
Vilayat Zahirov noted that, the enlightenment measures were continued for the purpose of providing methodological and legal assistance to municipalities. During the survey 5976 recommendations about different problems were sent to different municipalities. These recommendations explain the requirements of the legislation and indicate the necessity of eliminating and preventing of violations and shortcomings. During the year 21 training courses, 224 trainings and seminars were organized. 27 chairmen of municipality have been acquainted with the experience of local self-governing bodies in Turkey, Latvia, Lithuania, Bosnia and Herzegovina with the organization of national associations of municipalities. In total, 249 enlightenment events were held and 9825 municipal members and employees attended the event. 15 methodological materials and recommendations were prepared and sent to municipalities for use.
Special attention was paid to the expansion of international relations in the field of local self-government and cooperation was continued with the Council of Europe, relevant EU bodies and other international organizations in 2018.
