Azerbaijan urged to protect civil servants refusing illegal orders

Azerbaijan should establish a robust legal mechanism to shield civil servants who refuse unlawful instructions or report misconduct from administrative retaliation and intimidation, MP Azay Guliyev proposed during parliamentary debates on the draft Civil Service Code.

Guliyev commended the inclusion of statutory protections permitting officials to reject illegal directives and submit internal grievances, but emphasized that concrete enforcement safeguards are critical to ensure whistleblowers are not subsequently targeted. He urged lawmakers to extend identical protective guarantees to designated ethics officers.

Additionally, the lawmaker endorsed provisions allowing the extension of civil service tenures up to five times for one-year increments, recommending that the draft law explicitly detail criteria governing such renewals. Guliyev also advocated for anonymizing and distributing annual ethics compliance violation summaries across all state agencies to cultivate institutional accountability.

Gulnar Nazimgizi