In regard with the Municipal Elections appointed to December 23, 2019, a seminar on election dispute resolution was held with the organization of the Central Election Commission (CEC) in Ganja on October 29, 2019.

The seminar was attended by Tofig Hasanov, CEC member and Rafig Abbasov, Head of the Law Department, as well as generally, 99 officials of lower election commissions including 3 members of the Expert Group from each of 33 Constituency Election Commissions (Con.ECs) of certain towns and regions of the country.

The basic goal of conducting the seminar is raising awareness and increasing practical skills of the members of the Expert Group of Con.ECs on election dispute resolution and improving their activity to ensure citizens’ election rights more effectively.

CEC member Tofig Hasanov who opened the seminar reported on the topic "Legal requirements for the investigation of the appeals and complaints against the violation of the election right and the principles of investigating the complaints”.

It was informed that CEC was starting seminars on election dispute resolution from today. CEC has been implementing subsequent works in the field of ensuring election right more effectively basing on the experience attained for long years. The Commission administration focuses on two fields more seriously. First, preventing the violation of election right in advance and the second, investigation of the appeals filed by the election stakeholders timely, accurately and fairly, thereby adopting the just decision as a consequence.

CEC plans to hold 4 regional seminars on election dispute resolution. Firstly, these seminars started in Ganja. During the seminar the members of the Expert Group were explained of which principles should be taken as priority while investigating appeals and complaints against the violation of the election right. Regarding this, members of the Con.EC Expert Groups were informed on the legal framework, requirements and principles.

Rafig Abbasov, Head of Law Department of the CEC Secretariat made a broad presentation on "Investigation of the election-related appeals by Con.ECs and basis of the activity of Expert Groups”.

The legal framework on elections, especially, a number of issues enshrined in the Election Code, the subjects entitled to file a complaint, the object, format and text of the complaint, time period for filing a complaint on the violation of election right, time period for adopting a decision on the complaint, as well as the following procedures upon receiving an appeal or complaint were thoroughly clarified for the seminar participants.

The issues encountered during the appeals of the subjects claiming the violation of the election right, features of appeals and complaints, subsequence of the activities to be implemented by the members of Expert Groups, adoption and compilation of decisions, as well as other issues were clarified in practical form via visual aids at the end of the event. During the practical phase of the seminar samples of different type of appeals and complaints on topics were reviewed and adoption of relevant decisions on those complaints by the appropriate election commissions were considered.

At the end discussions on the topics were held and the questions interesting to the participants were replied to.

It is worth noting that regional seminars that started in Ganja on October 29, 2019 as a large-scale educational project will last in Shaki, Masalli and finally in Baku up to November 4, 2019, thereby covering all Expert Group members of 125 Con.ECs.

AZERTAC