Azerbaijan, Baku, 30 October / Trend , corr. I.Alizade / The project of the Amnesty Act which was presented to the Parliament of Azerbaijan envisages reducing imprisonment term of all prisoners by one year.
"In addition, the project envisages replacing life-term imprisonment with 20 years in prison," MP Panah Huseynov, member of Musavat Group of MPs representing opposition in the Parliament, told Trend on 30 October.
The last Amnesty Act in Azerbaijan was passed in May 2007. So far, 8 amnesty acts have been passed, being referred to 40,000 prisoners. Since 1994, 45 pardon decrees have been signed, freeing 4858 prisoners. Some 32 of the decrees have been signed by former President Heydar Aliyev and 13 by the current President Ilham Aliyev.
Due to 90th anniversary of establishment of the Parliament, Huseyn has prepared and submitted to Parliament the project of the Amnesty Act.
Huseyn stated that up to now, the practice of reducing imprisonment by one year has not been introduced in the Amnesty Acts.
The MP said that according to the project, if there are relatives of the members of the first Azerbaijan Parliament in the prisons, they will be freed.
"If the relatives of the members of Azerbaijan Parliament functioning in 1918-1920 have been imprisoned, they are intended to be acquitted," the MP said.
Huseyn said that the project implies freeing prisoners being jailed in accordance with the articles 147, 148 (slander and insult) of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan. He said that the project was devised based on the Amnesty Act adopted in the Parliament in 2007 because it corresponds to modern legislation.
The MP said that the Amnesty Act is not envisaged to be referred to those who committed war crimes, anti-State crimes and heinous crimes.
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