The chairman of the parliamentary Labour and Social Policy Committee Musa Guliyev started the committee meeting held on 16 September – the first one in the 2022 spring session – by commenting on the Armenian provocation of the night from the 12^th to the 13^th of September. Mr Guliyev stressed that the personnel of the courageous Azerbaijani Army had once again given the enemy a fitting rebuff and, in addition, had taken over strategic heights. The meeting participants then had a minute of silence in memory of those fallen in that engagement.

Musa Guliyev announced the agenda of the meeting as consisting of 8 items with 6 of them being draft amendments to several laws.

The chairman began with an account of the work that the parliamentary committee had done during the 2022 spring and extraordinary sessions. He said that both sessions had been fruitful and recalled the 11 committee meetings held to consider the total of 25 matters. Amongst those were draft amendments to the laws ‘On the Retirement Pensions’ and ‘On the Social Benefits’, to the Labour Code, to the Law ‘On the Personified Accounting in the State Social Insurance System’ and to the 2022 budgets of the State Social Insurance Fund and the Unemployment Insurance Fund. Besides, the committee had considered a few other draft laws. The Milli Majlis had passed all those documents ultimately. Furthermore, the committee meetings had attended the hearing in Shusha about the implementation of the compulsory medical insurance facility in the country (the then status and work plans had been surveyed).

Continuing his recount, Mr Guliyev said that the past period had seen the committee receive 887 documents in total: 430 applications from citizens and 365 return letters from ministries and other departments. The incoming correspondence had been about pensions, the targeted social aid, flat-related problems and others; certain steps had been taken to address all those. Furthermore, the committee’s head and members had held periodical surgeries.

Having finished with what had been done, Mr Guliyev proceeded to what has to be done in the course of the 2022 autumn session. He mentioned the planned discussion of several Bills and a hearing on bolstering the social protection of the shahid families and gazies as well as on facilitating the access to the labour market for persons with disabilities.

Then came the turn of the Bills containing legislative amendments.

First, the head of the Social Legislation Department of the Milli Majlis Staff Adil Valiyev brought forth the amendments (all in the first reading) to the laws ‘On the Retirement Pensions’, ‘On the Social Benefits’ and ‘On the Social Services’.

It follows from Paragraph 4.2 of the 2020-2022 National Work Plan to Promote the Open Government, approved with the presidential decree dated 27 February 2020, that several laws are to be modified to make the area-specific legislations more functional and applicable.

The said amendments are designed to eliminate citizens’ difficulties with collecting and submitting various documents and pieces of information. On the other hand, they will cut time costs down, which is expected to make citizens more satisfied with the services whilst, at the same time, enhancing the functionality of the Electronic Government Information System and bolstering the digital integration amongst various ministries, departments and organisations.

Adil Valiyev informed the assembly of the amendments to the Law ‘On Perpetuating the Title of the Shahid and on the Benefits to the Shahid Families’. He pointed out that the amendments had been put together in line with the presidential decree ‘On the Certain Measures to Optimise the Administration of the State Compulsory Individual Insurance’. The amendment to the law’s Article 6 will ensure greater precision in defining the groups of sources tapped to cover the costs associated with the shahids and the expenditures on their families.

The draft law containing amendments to the Labour Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan was tabled next. It was said that a new paragraph, to be inserted in Article 11 concerning the principal rights of employers, would set the right to organise additional education at the continued education institutions in order to enhance employee professional adequacy, have employees acquire more specialities and put on more available specialities. It is stipulated in the amendment to Article 65 on the employee attestation and its rules and conditions that an assessment of an employee’s adequacy to his/her position shall be connected with the consideration of the employee’s having increased his/her adequacy, acquired a new profession and the total of professions he/she commands as well as the relevant results secured within the five-year period preceding the attestation in each given case.

As per the amendments to the Articles 67, 78 and 179, those who have succeeded in increasing their professional training, have acquired new specialities and have completed an additional training at the appropriate education institutions in order to increase their adequacy shall be preferred when employee and workplace attestation results are regulated, the privilege to retain employment and/or position(s) in redundancies and other staff discharges is broadened to include more people and when also it is determined in which cases average salaries are to remain unchanged.

The committee meeting continued.

It was said during the presentation of amendments to the Budgetary System Law, the Unemployment Insurance Law and the Chamber of Accounts Law that the Bill that held them had been drawn up in pursuance of the law dated 24 December 2021 whereby the Budgetary System law had been modified.

It is proposed now to remove the ‘aggregate financial balance sheet’ formulation from the Budgetary System Law and to amend Article 15.4 in compliance with Article 7 of the same law. Furthermore, the Unemployment Insurance Fund’s status is that of an off-budget state fund established without creation of a legal entity and it is proposed to amend Article 20 of the Unemployment Insurance Law accordingly. The Chamber of Accounts of the Republic of Azerbaijan gives its opinions about draft budgets of the off-budget state funds specified in Article 1.1.31-1 of the Budgetary System Law as well as it does about the annual budget performance reports of the same funds. Those are the State Oil Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the State Social Protection Fund and the Unemployment Fund. Lastly, the stipulations and requirements of the aforementioned law are to be reflected in the corresponding articles of the Chamber of Accounts Law.

The deputy committee chair Malahat Ibrahimghizi and the committee member Jala Aliyeva put forth their considerations regarding the agenda items.

In the end, the committee approved the performance report about the 2022 spring and extraordinary sessions, sanctioned the 2022 autumn-session work plan and recommended that all the 6 Bills discussed at the meeting should be brought before a plenum of the Milli Majlis.

The Press and Public Relations Department

The Milli Majlis