Venice Commission's judgment regarding proposed Azerbaijani constitutional amendments too hasty - presidential aide

The Azerbaijani authorities find that the opinion expressed by the people on the country's constitutional amendments is more important than the opinions of any experts, including those based overseas, Azerbaijani presidential aide for sociopolitical issues Ali Hasanov said.


"This referendum initiative came from the president of this country [Ilham Aliyev]. The bill [on constitutional amendments] has been put to the popular vote. The will of the Azerbaijani people is above opinions of domestic and foreign experts for us," Hasanov told reporters on Monday.


If the country's citizens say 'yes' to the proposed amendments, then the latter will be implemented. "If the people say 'no', then this initiative will go down in history as [one of] the proposals that were not supported," Hasanov said.


Hasanov went on to note that the Azerbaijani government cooperates with the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe, the European Union, and other international entities. However, the Venice Commission's statement on the Azerbaijani referendum was too hasty, he said.


"It takes the Venice Commission several months to properly assess such projects, initiatives, and statutory acts of different nations. If the Venice Commission had turned to us, then the Azerbaijani side would have sent them the draft [version of the amendments] for assessment. But the Venice Commission just published a tailor-made opinion without asking us or putting itself into this matter. We assessed the Venice Commission's actions accordingly," he said.


Baku duly reacts to tailor-made statements and opinions from so-called international legal institutions and nongovernmental organizations regarding Azerbaijan, Hasanov said.


It was reported earlier that in its preliminary opinion, the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe noted that the constitutional amendments proposed by the Azerbaijani authorities are considered negative and not in line with the constitutional heritage of Europe. The Venice Commission suggested in its opinion that the proposed amendments, if adopted, would seriously disturb the balance between different branches of power and that they would also give some unprecedented powers to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

www.ann.az