A session of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan was held on October 28. The session was dedicated to the officially published results of the elections of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the event of epochal importance for our state and nation.

Opening the session, Chairman of the Constitutional Court Farkhad Abdullayev announced the membership of the court and said that members of the Central Election Commission were present at the session as interested subject. According to article 39 of the law on Constitutional Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan, they have a right to participate in consideration of evidence, ask questions to experts and make the final speech.

Secretary of the court session Ismail Ismailov announced on presence of legal representatives of legal representatives of interested subjects and experts at the session.

Judge of the Constitutional Court Sona Salmanova stated in her report that according to part 1 of article 101 of the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan is elected for a five-year term on equal and direct election right by means of free, personal and secret voting. New Presidential elections are announced on the last year of a five-year term and the Central Election Commission fixes the date of elections.

She said: by its resolution of October 20, 2003, Central Election Commission approved the protocol of Presidential elections. According to article 102 of the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan and article 203.1 of the Election Code, this protocol, resolution and attached documents were submitted to the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan for approval and publication of the results of voting.

According to the related regulations of the Election Code and according to the rules, foreseen by the Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan on Constitutional Court, today, the Constitutional Court is considering the issue related approval and publication of results of the Presidential elections held on October 15, 2003.

Judge of the Constitutional Court Rafael Gvaladze spoke on the essence materials of the case and actions taken by the Constitutional Court at the preparatory stage to this issue and underlined that after checking of correspondence of documents submitted by the Central Election Commission, first of all, of the resulting protocol to demands of the Election Code, the Constitutional Court approves the results of voting. According to the demands of the Election Code, employees of the State Committee for Statistics were attracted as experts to the elections. The applies related the complaints of the citizens in connection with the elations were sent to the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal. The received answers show that no complaints related to the protocol of the Central Election Commission on Presidential elections were received by the above-mentioned bodies. As it is seen from the protocol, 1 million 860 thousand 346 votes or 76.84 percent of acknowledged valid 2 million 421 thousand were given to Aliyev Ilham Heydar oglu.

A legal representative of the interested subject, Chairman of the Central Election Commission of the Republic of Azerbaijan Masahir Panakhov appraised the day of October 15 as an event of exclusive importance in history of Azerbaijan and pointed out that preparation and organization of the elections were held according to the recently adopted Election Code, meeting the international standards.

He spoke on preparatory work and approval of the Election Code reflecting all regulations for holding democratic, transparent elections, highly appraised by prestigious international structures, told about calendar schedule prepared in the Central Election Commission on holding Presidential Elections on October 15, 2003.

Chairman of the CEC reported that initially the territory of Azerbaijan was divided into 125 election districts, borders of the districts were determined and their schemes were published in newspapers. District election commission were formed up in 124 districts and only in Khankendi district, it was possible to form the commission. Polling stations were opened in 5146 divisions; the membership of the commissions was formed up according to political pluralism. About 32 thousand of members of central, district and divisional election commissions were dealing with preparation and holding of the elections.

Representatives of 8 political parties – one ruling and 7 oppositional ones were included into the membership of the commissions.

Nine out of 12 registered contenders had been nominated by political parties and three – by initiative groups. According to the demands of the law, the contenders were given equal opportunities to announce their pre-electoral platforms, meetings with voters for campaigning. The contenders met freely with voters in the regions of the republic and it was followed by local and international public.

It was for the first time that transparent ballot boxes were used in Azerbaijan. The others were given ballots and envelops for putting the ballots into the box stamped in envelop.

Underlining that no restrictions were introduced for monitoring of the elections, Mazahir Panakhov said that international structures, foreign countries were sent invitations and as a result over one thousand of representatives of prestigious international organizations, diplomatic corpse, local and foreign mass media side by side with 43 thousand of local observers were monitoring the elections. Mass Media were informing international public both on preparatory work on the eve of voting and the elections.

Besides, Independent press center was sending all day long information to thousands of addresses. The information center “Seckilar” fulfilled fruitful activities on demonstration of transparency at the elections and operative informing on the results of voting.

It was noted that the opposition had designated its commission members with advisory ballot right, plenipotentiaries and observers. Preliminary results from the protocols of divisional elections held in true democratic atmosphere could be found at the website within 12 hours. This fact has played an important role in attraction of special attention of the global community to the elections in Azerbaijan to form its opinion from the standpoint of holding unbiased, democratic and transparent election.

Then, the CEC Chairman said: it was for the first time that the day after elections, we updated the global community on the preliminary results. After that, the protocols have been delivered within 48 hours - as envisaged by the law - from district and divisional election commissions to the Central Election Commission; the results were summarized and general concluding protocol was drawn up.

The Protocol was discussed at the October 20, 2003 sitting of the Central Election Commission and approved by 12 out of 15 CEC members after summing up of the voting results. The given Protocol and other documents were sent the Constitutional Court for ratification and promulgation. Confirming the data, I want to announce that according to the final protocol, 3 million 164 thousand 348 out of 4 million 442 thousand 338 electors with suffrage have voted that constitutes 71,23 percent. I want to especially mention that the well-organized, disciplined and active participation of the Azerbaijan’s voters aroused international observers and press representatives’ deep satisfaction.

As a result of consideration of the protocols delivered to the Central Election Commission, returns in 694 out of 5146 stations have been recognized invalid for various reasons. Finally, 2 million 421 thousand 61 votes - 1 million 860 thousand 346 of which had been given to Mr. Ilham Heydar oglu Aliyev – have been declared valid. It showed that Ilham Aliyev gathering 76,84 percent of votes, has gained a brilliant victory by a great margin over the rest seven candidates. These results were submitted to the Constitutional Court.

Afterwards, the Chairman of the CEC gave detailed answers to questions from judges of the Constitutional Court. Secretary of the Central Election Commission Vidadi Mahmudov stressed he represented the opposition spoke of its behalf, and shared his opinion on the regulations on and procedure of the October 15 presidential election.

Secretary Inglab Nasirov, the commission member Fuad Javadov, CEC deputy Chairman Svetlana Gasimova told of the stages of the election of the President of Azerbaijan and reported that 5129 polling stations were opened at 8 a.m., the polling completed at 7 p.m., whereupon the vote counting stage started.

Highly appreciating the activity of the voters, the speakers expressed gratitude to the people in the regions who enjoying their constitutional rights, went to the polling stations. It was noted that the present elections positively impressed the observers representing authoritative international organizations, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, OSCE Bureau of Democratic Institutes and Human Rights, Commonwealth of Independent States, representatives of Embassies.

In all, the elections were held in transparent and free atmosphere. No reports on serious irregularities, which could have had an effect upon the elections results were submitted to the Central Election Committee.

The speakers mentioned that during the elections, which had been organized in accordance with the requirements of law, and which the opposition parties had put obstacles upon, a number of electors had not found their names in the register of votes, and speak about the international observers’ attitude to the reports by some opposition parties, which could not cast a shadow on the elections results. They reminded that the international observers had kept under control the post-voting procedures including drawing up the protocols in district election commissions, and the preliminary results had been promulgated by the Central Election Commission right after the protocols were delivered here from the districts.

Leading economist of the ate Committee on statistics Galim Huseynov, teacher of the department of Constitutional Rights of the Baku State University, candidate of Jurisprudence Mubariz Ismaylov delivered their report.

They said: we checked the protocol of the Central Election Commission of October 20 on the presidential elections held on October 15. It was determined that in accordance of Article 102.2 of the Election Code, the CEC protocol had included the total number of voters in the register of votes, the number of voters who had received absentee certificates for voting, the number of voting papers and envelopes, the number of voters who received the envelopes, the number of voting papers and envelopes given to the voters to vote outside the polling station, the number of voters who voted with the absentee certificates for voting, the number of unused voting papers, the number of votes declared invalid and other data. All requirements of the Election Code were reflected in the protocol of the Election Code.

The experts noted that the protocol of the Central Election Commission of October 20, 2003 on the presidential elections held on October 15, 2003 had been drawn up in full compliance with the requirements of Articles 100, 108 and 203 of the Election Code.

The experts’ reports have been attached to the Constitutional case.

With the Court consideration completed, Chairman of the Constitutional Court Farhad Abdullayev has read out the resolution on approval and formal promulgation of the results of elections of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

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Present at the sitting of the Constitutional Court were Chairman of the Milli Majlis of the Republic of Azerbaijan Murtuz Alasgarov, deputies of the Milli Majlis Chairman and other officials.