Today Azerbaijani Prosecutor General Zakir Garalov attended at a signing ceremony of the Additional Protocol to the “Criminal Law Convention on Corruption” at the Council of Europe headquarters, Strasbourg. Chief of General Prosecutor Office’s Department to Combat Corruption Kamran Aliyev, Assistant of Prosecutor General V. Samadov and Deputy Permanent Representative to the Council of Europe Jalal Mirzayev participated at the signing ceremony, APA reports. Azerbaijan joined and ratified the “Criminal Law Convention on Corruption” in 2003, Chief of General Prosecutor Office’s Department to Combat Corruption Kamran Aliyev told APA. “When we signed this convention, we had accepted some clauses with proviso. To sing any clause or clauses with proviso is a right of each country, that is to notify its disagreement with these clauses. And we also used our rights when we signed this convention. They are clauses # 5 (Bribery of foreign public officials), 6(Bribery of members of foreign public assemblies), 10 (Bribery of members of international parliamentary assemblies) and 12 (Trading in influence) of the “Criminal Law Convention on Corruption”. But now we have made some amendments to our national legislation and we have cancelled these provisos. In addition, today the Prosecutor General signed the Additional Protocol (bribery of domestic arbitrators, bribery of foreign arbitrators, bribery of domestic and foreign jurors) dated May 15, 2003 of “Criminal Law Convention on Corruption”. But there was preparation period for a long time.

According to the order signed by the President on August 30, the Prosecutor General was charged with authority to sign the Additional Protocol to the “Criminal Law Convention on Corruption” of the Council of Europe. Today the addendum was signed and after ratification at the Parliament it will come into effect in Azerbaijan. K. Aliyev noted that Azerbaijan had signed the Additional Protocol with statement. “Like the Convention in 2003, we have signed this Additional Protocol with a statement. The statement reads that 20 % percent of Azerbaijani territories were occupied by Armenia and we don’t take responsibility that the Convention clauses will be applied in the occupied territories”. 

Within frame of the visit to the Council of Europe Z.Garalov had a bilateral meeting with Gabriella Battaini-Dragoni, Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe. The sides exchanged views on relations between Azerbaijan and the Council of Europe. Ms.Battaini-Dragoni was informed on the legislation and institutional measures to combat corruption in Azerbaijan as well as on propagandizing Open Government and National Activity Plan for 2012-2015, establishment of the State Agency for Public Services and Social Innovations under the President and functioning of the State Agency.  Progressive changes to combat corruption in Azerbaijan were highly assessed and a successful cooperation of Azerbaijan with the Group of States against corruption (GRECO) was underlined and a continuation of these relations was noted at the meeting.