Program Coordinator: Fuad Suleymanov

     Mission
     Azerbaijan has made considerable progress with law reform since the eve of admission to the Council of Europe. There is still a great deal to be done in a number of fields, which merit OSI's attention and support. Our strategy remains the same: to bring the law closer to the people in everyday life.
     This paper aims at outlining where OSI-AF's Law/ Criminal Justice program should focus.

     General goals
     In developing its legal program OSI-AF keeps the following goals in mind:

• Promote legal education
• Support development of democratic institutions and civil society
• Promote respect for and protection of human rights
• Promote legal reforms and dissemination of legal information
• Take action against the widespread corruption in Azerbaijan.
• Take advantage of Azerbaijan's accession to the Council of Europe

     Partners
     For the successful implementation of the legal program OSI-AF has to be in closer contacts to other donors and international organizations operating in Azerbaijan or those who has plans compatible with the OSI-AF mission in legal field. Some of them are already our key partners:

• Constitutional and Legal Policy Institute (COLPI)
• American Bar Association, Central and East European Law Initiative (ABA CEELI)
• Council of Europe (CoE)
• Amnesty International (AI)
• Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GTZ)
• Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)
• Penal Reform International (PRI)
• Transparency International (TI)

• Azerbaijan Lawyers Association
• Legal Education Society
• Azerbaijan Young Lawyers' Association
• XXI Century Lawyers
• Human Rights Centre of Azerbaijan
• Helsinki Citizens' Assembly
• Azerbaijan Foundation for Democracy Development and Human Rights
• Dilara Alieva Women's Rights Society

     Clinical Legal Education
     Clinical legal education is a major area of our activity, as it serves both educational and practical needs by making use of the services of law students under supervision of qualified lawyers. Based on the Khazar University and Baku State University legal clinics experience we may support clinics at other law schools and of course to continue our supporting to those two previous. At the same time we could put our efforts towards establishing a common advisory board and develop regular working meetings of the staff of clinics to cooperate on issues such as developing a procedures manual, working with the government on a student practice rule, gaining access to the prisons, etc.
     Reforming legal education should not be limited to clinical education only: we have to turn our efforts to work on curriculum reform and law school management in general as well as developing comprehensive law libraries at law schools.

     Textbook development
     For Azerbaijan Law particularly in the area of Human Rights secure there have been significant changes in the legislation recently. It makes sense to generate public debates concerning newly adopted laws and to develop reviews/comments of them especially with references to compliance with international standards, particularly those of the European Convention on Human Rights.

     Free legal aid
     It is of paramount importance for the protection of human rights to have an effectively functioning system of free legal aid and access to justice for those groups in society, which need such aid but cannot afford it. Based on the experience gained from the previous project implementation we should support projects that would take cases to court, not just be satisfied with pre-trial advice. We need to consider the necessity of providing free legal aid for other poorly served communities, such as minorities and homeless youth.

     Legal education for journalists
     Recent experience has shown that the government attacks journalists during elections and other national public events, so it would be sensible to develop a legal support and education program for journalists in conjunction with our media program.

     Wallet Card Project
     Previous OSI-AF's wallet cards have been quite successful. We hope our wallet card program will have an ongoing legal education and anti-corruption impact.

     Police reform
     One of our main aims in criminal justice area should be to assist in police reform. COLPI suggests focusing primarily on reform of the police academy. Building close working relations with the academy could function as 'confidence-building' measure with the police, so that at a later stage we could also start other, more delicate projects with the police organs directly.
     COLPI has developed a series of training modules on improving the teaching methodology at police academies. We're currently developing these modules as a first stage of work.
     The Council of Europe develops a project "Police and Human Rights" aimed at establishing permanent network of police academies and we could cooperate to this project as well. The British and Norwegian embassies have expressed an interested in developing joint projects in this area.

     Judiciary reform
     Since September 2000 more than 300 newly appointed judges have begun their work as judiciaries. It is of our interest to work on providing them with examples of best practices of independent judiciary and support of establishing Judicial Training Centre (JTC) as an independent and professional centre for consistent training of judges. COLPI has certain concept papers on JTC that we could use also. Military justice is our priority sphere as well that is allowed to administer conscripts cases properly. Again, we may develop a JTC more quickly with political and financial support from the OSCE and other foreign organizations working here.

     Prison reform
     The reform of the penitentiary system remains one of the most urgent needs in Azerbaijan. Efforts should be undertaken to improve prisoners' knowledge of their rights, for instance through the development of locally produced guidebooks and brochures. We should also support HR groups to monitor prisons, detention places and court trials. We should support their training to send cases to the Human Rights Court in Strasbourg. Training or at least increase of legal awareness of the prison's stuff should also be our interest, which would allow to prevent of violation internal rules on a reason of merely absence of knowledge.
     Another interesting area for prison work is in access to justice, bringing legal information and services closer to prisoners and their families. We will work with the information program and possibly also the education program to initiate new projects in prisons. There are now 3 local NGOs doing work in the prisons:

• Human Rights Centre of Azerbaijan
• Azerbaijan Foundation for Democracy and Human Rights (created in 2000 by a political prisoner released in 2000 after Council of Europe pressure)
• Dilara Alieva Society for Women's Rights

     Anti-corruption program
     We began our anti-corruption program in 2000 through a grant to open a chapter of Transparency International (TI) in Azerbaijan. At the first stage it is operating as Transparency-Azerbaijan (TA), local anti-corruption NGO. Currently TA is working to state register itself and developing its local board. As soon as TI Berlin is comfortable with the operation of TA, the board will apply for official recognition from TI headquarters as the TI franchise in Azerbaijan.
     OSIAF hopes to include a focus on corruption in all of its activities. This is the more warranted as corruption affects the very basis of rule of law and should therefore be fought against with all available legal means. Transparency activities should be high on the agenda, which in addition to combating corruption implies issues such as access to information by the public and the demystification of closed institutions and access to information about the activities of such institutions.

     Mission and goals
     The Azerbaijan Government is conducting a number of reforms to amend the existing laws in compatibility to the Council of Europe standards and try to show applying democratic approaches to the state governance and public service sector. Government says that the development of local government and public administration practice is one of the essential parts of the democratization of the governance in country.
     The main goal of our local government program should be recognised as to promote the democratic reform of local government and public administration, facilitate the operation of local governments, and support the development of local governance and NGOs active in this field.
     The original objectives of OSI-AF's Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative program are:

• Development of the basic and comparative information about public administration, suggestions in drafting legislation dealing with the local government;
• Increasing public awareness about local governance, promoting co-operation and communication between local governments and citizens;
• Enhance the capacity of higher education institutions in public administration;
• Assistance to the in-service training initiatives for current public administrators;
• Offer direct advice to local governments on policy and management problems;
• Cooperation to other OSI-AF's civil society programs to develop policy and management in local government field;
• It has also be supported the initiatives in minority regions and in minority languages.

     Partners
     To meet demands of Azerbaijan society in field of local government OSI-AF has to be in closer contacts to the various international institutions who has the plans compatible with the OSI-AF mission in field of local government and public service reform. Some of them should be our key partners:

• Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative (LGI)
• International Federation for Election Systems (IFES)
• Council of Europe (CoE)
• Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)
• Public Administration Institute for Turkey and the Middle East (TODAIE)
• Transparency International (TI).

     Education
     It is of paramount importance to increase public awareness about principles of public administration as an effectively functioning system of local governance. Based on the experience gained from the municipalities' rights and duties wallet-card project implementation we should support projects that would get the public opinion more about the principles of local governance.
     From the other hand we should attract our last year students at TODAIE to conduct projects on deliver lectures and improve practical skills of municipal officials.
     Crucial point is to have a longer-term impact from the project implementation. Strategic alliances with the comparatively active municipalities could be an effective means in this context.
     Municipal officials and local government professionals in Azerbaijan have little or even no idea about what their colleagues are doing in neighbouring countries. It is undoubted important if they would aware of the work is doing by the colleagues, they will form co-operative relationships, exchange materials and ideas, or work together on specific projects in the region.

     Capacity building for officials
     Azerbaijan has enacted a great deal of new legislation since last year and it is too important to inform the municipality officials about the merits of the new laws. We should generate a program of increasing their awareness concern new public administration legislation.
     Other important area, which has to be developed, is fiscal decentralization program that would provide officials with the analytical framework for understanding intergovernmental fiscal economics and various modules of the central-local relationship. This will enhance officials' capacity for successful implementation of public sector resource management reform by analyzing mechanisms for the transfer of resources among governments and identifying ways to address the issue of regional disparities and local resource mobilization. Here we should refer to LGI experience and support.

     Anti-corruption program
     OSI-AF hopes to include a focus on corruption in all of its activities in Azerbaijan. This is the more warranted as corruption affects the very basis of rule of law and should therefore be fought against with all available legal means. Transparency activities should be high on the agenda, which, in addition to combating corruption, implies issues such as access to information by the public.