A draft law on free legal aid is being prepared

“We would like to point out the misconception among civil society about the concept of "legal aid at public expense" that the concept of "legal aid at public expense" does not apply to administrative detainees, criminal suspects and defendants, and those who do not have sufficient funds to pay for a lawyer in court, includes the provision of legal assistance to individuals. This includes legal assistance provided to a person who is unable to be represented by a lawyer in the Supreme Court by a decision of an appellate court”

According to the e-huquq.az, this statement was made by Farhad Najafov, Advisor to the Chairman of the Bar Association.

According to him, given that the Law on Free Legal Aid, which provides for the provision of free legal aid in all courts and state instances in Azerbaijan, has not yet been adopted, members of the Bar Association provide legal assistance only at the expense of the state in cases specified in Article 20 of the Law on Lawyers and Advocacy can show: “Therefore, this amount - 2,855,083 AZN cannot be directed to other illegal legal aid activities”
In addition, the government, parliament and the Bar Association are currently working on a draft law on free legal aid. We will soon see a positive result.
In addition, another point that led to the discussion was the disposal of these budget funds, cost accounting, etc. related issues. In this regard, it should be noted that the right to dispose of these funds from the state budget passed to the Board in 2020. The Bar Association, in turn, conducts accounting, statistics and monitoring activities in this area with full accuracy. Therefore, at the end of 2021, we will get acquainted with comparative statistics describing the current situation in this area. In previous years, this activity was carried out by local bodies of the Ministry of Finance, so the Board's ability to make more accurate comparisons is limited. At the same time, it should remember that these funds of the state budget are not held in the bank account of the Board and are physically kept in the treasury account of the state budget belong to the Bar Association”, F.Najafov noted.

It should be noted that AZN 5,519,250 was allocated to the Bar Association from the 2020 state budget to provide legal assistance at the expense of the state, but a total of AZN 2,664,167 was spent on these decisions, and AZN 2,855,083 was returned to the budget at the end of the year.