{"id":1555,"date":"2020-12-16T11:10:03","date_gmt":"2020-12-16T11:10:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rcstaging.co.uk\/ehrac\/?p=1555"},"modified":"2021-04-02T13:04:30","modified_gmt":"2021-04-02T12:04:30","slug":"human-rights-lawyers-denied-access-to-the-azerbaijani-bar-submit-case-to-european-court-of-human-rights","status":"publish","type":[30],"link":"http:\/\/ehrac.org.uk\/en_gb\/human-rights-lawyers-denied-access-to-the-azerbaijani-bar-submit-case-to-european-court-of-human-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"Human rights lawyers denied access to the Azerbaijani Bar submit case to European Court of Human Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t
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Five Azerbaijani human rights lawyers are taking a case to the European Court of Human Rights in which they allege that their Convention rights were violated by Azerbaijan when they were arbitrarily denied access to the Azerbaijani Bar in 2018.<\/p>\n

The lawyers claim that they failed an admission process to the Azerbaijani Bar Association (ABA) that is open to bias and abuse, after the Azerbaijani Government introduced new measures restricting access to the legal profession in the country.<\/p>\n

The five lawyers are now unable to practise before domestic courts in Azerbaijan, which has both negatively impacted their lives and impeded their vital human rights work. EHRAC is representing the applicants in this case \u2014 Emin Abbasov, Tural Hajibayli, Asima Nasirli, Samad Rahimli, and Ramil Suleymanov.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI want to hope that the Government of Azerbaijan cannot deprive dozens of independent lawyers in perpetuity. I believe that independent lawyers must fight to establish a genuinely independent legal profession which is not dependent on the Government or its institutions.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Emin Abbasov, applicant<\/cite><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Before 2018, the five lawyers \u2013 Abbasov, Hajibayli, Nasirli, Rahimli, and Suleymanov \u2013 had worked on countless human rights cases and represented many clients before the Azerbaijani courts and at the European Court of Human Rights.<\/p>\n

But everything changed when Azerbaijan\u2019s parliament, in early 2018, put in place new legislative changes to the legal profession, stipulating that all lawyers representing clients before domestic courts must be members of the ABA. Before the 2018 legislation was introduced, lawyers who were not members of the ABA were able to practise in most Azerbaijani courts. These changes, in effect, prohibited non-members from practising before the courts in Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0ABA<\/a>\u00a0is the body charged with governance of Azerbaijan\u2019s legal profession. The independence of the ABA, and its ability to regulate the legal profession in a fair and objective manner, has long been questioned by\u00a0human rights NGOs<\/a>\u00a0and international bodies.<\/p>\n

All five lawyers were outspoken in their criticism of the changes, which they believed were intended to prevent lawyers from taking sensitive human rights cases against the Azerbaijani authorities. Together with a number of other lawyers, they formed a campaigning group to publicly challenge the legislation, taking part in a public press conference, submitting proposals to the Azerbaijani parliament, and preparing reports for human rights organisations and international agencies and NGOs.<\/p>\n

Some established members of the Azerbaijani Bar responded by publicly smearing the group of dissenting lawyers. The President of the ABA accused them of wanting to create chaos in Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n

International NGOs such as the\u00a0International Commission of Jurists<\/a>\u00a0(ICJ) expressed\u00a0concerns<\/a>\u00a0over the reforms, arguing that it would cause detrimental effects on access to justice, and the right to a fair trial, in a country that was already experiencing an acute shortage of lawyers, whilst also criticising the persistent lack of independence within the ABA.<\/p>\n

Under the new rules, the five dissenting lawyers were forced to seek admission to the ABA, which required a written and oral examination. All of the lawyers passed the initial written examination component and were therefore each invited to undertake an oral interview.<\/p>\n

It was at this stage of the admission procedure that the lawyers found their paths blocked to the Azerbaijani Bar. All five of them found themselves being failed by ABA examiners, some being asked questions that were so specific they required candidates to know 6150 provisions by heart. Other candidates were criticised for not citing legal principles in the exact order as they are found in the relevant legislation. They were failed without explanation, save that their responses were unsatisfactory.<\/p>\n

Four of the five lawyers lodged internal appeals to the Presidium, the governing body of the ABA which includes the president and the deputy president. Their appeals were rejected.<\/p>\n

The ICJ has\u00a0noted<\/a>\u00a0that the Presidium of the ABA lacks independence in practise, and that the association\u2019s president has critical influence on other members of the governing body.<\/p>\n

In the run-up to his oral interview, Ramil Suleymanov met several times with the president of the ABA, who urged Ramil to publicly support the new legislative reforms and to forswear any membership of any political movement or party or to be involved in any political events if he were to continue practising as a human rights lawyer. Ramil acceded to the president\u2019s demands in a signed statement.<\/p>\n

Ramil chose not to submit an appeal with the ABA, instead taking his complaints directly to a Baku court. The other four lawyers all eventually decided to take their cases to court too, alleging that the ABA\u2019s oral interviews were unlawful and biased.<\/p>\n

Four of their cases were ultimately dismissed by Azerbaijan\u2019s Supreme Court. Samad Rahimli\u2019s appeal before the Supreme Court is still pending.<\/p>\n

In her\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0of a visit to Azerbaijan in December 2019, the Council of Europe\u2019s Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovi\u0107, recorded that the ABA\u2019s non-admission to the Bar of certain categories of persons \u201cpoints to a deficit of institutional independence.\u201d Concern has also been raised by the\u00a0UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0ICJ<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The five Azerbaijani lawyers are now turning to the European Court of Human Rights in pursuit of justice.<\/p>\n

In their submission to the Court, they argue that the overly broad discretion given to the body overseeing the oral interview, and their subsequent failures without adequate explanation, breaches the right to respect for their private lives, expressed through their professional lives (under Art. 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights), and that they have been deprived of the peaceful enjoyment of possessions, being their successful legal practices, (in contravention of Art. 1. Prot. 1.). The lawyers also allege that they were denied effective domestic remedies for their complaints in Azerbaijan (in breach of Art. 13).<\/p>\n

The applicants\u2019 lives were disrupted by the new laws. Opportunities and income were lost. Clients could not be represented. Relationships with colleagues were interrupted.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince the beginning of 2018, when I was deprived of the ability to represent individuals before domestic courts, I initially lost a major professional opportunity and have been shut out of domestic litigation\u201d, said Emin Abbasov. \u201cAfter that, I was forced to refer clients to other lawyers who were members of the ABA.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent years, dozens of independent lawyers in Azerbaijan have been subjected to harassment, prosecution, and disbarment by the authorities in order to restrict their ability to take on high-profile and politically sensitive cases, including those concerning serious human rights violations.<\/p>\n

EHRAC has identified over\u00a0twenty Azerbaijani human rights lawyers<\/a>\u00a0who have been disbarred, suspended, or criminally prosecuted (or otherwise sanctioned).<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the European Court of Human Rights found that the suspension and eventual disbarment of\u00a0Azerbaijani human rights lawyer Khalid Bagirov<\/a>\u00a0had interfered with his right to freedom of expression and his right to a private life, ordering the \u201cmaximum possible reparation\u201d. Bagirov was first suspended in 2011 after he made comments about the suspicious death of his client in police custody and was later permanently disbarred in 2015 for criticising Azerbaijan\u2019s judicial system during a high-profile trial.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd as more judgments issued by the Court find violations of the [European] Convention due to the unlawful acts of the Bar association, its systematic shortcomings will become more and more obvious.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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