Azerbaijan: civil society activists challenge legality of CEC's instruction on conducting exit polls

In Azerbaijan, the NGO "Law and Development", specializing in election issues, intends to challenge in court the "Rules of accrediting organizations conducting exit polls", approved by the Central Election Commission (CEC) on the eve of the presidential election.

As stated by Khafiz Gasanov, the head of the above NGO, the CEC's new document, in particular, deprives unregistered NGOs of the right to conduct exit polls, as they are not legal entities.

"Some NGOs, engaged in election issues, for years can't pass their state registration at the Ministry of Justice," Mr Gasanov told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Besides, according to his version, the above Rules get beyond the scope of a CEC's normative document and "consider the issues covered by the legislation. For example, the criteria put forward for organizations and individuals conducting exit polls. The function of the CEC is the technical regulation of the exit poll procedure, while definition of the criteria for the entities or individuals conducting exit polls is within the competence of the legislator," said Gasanov.

He also told about the intention of his NGO to challenge the compliance of the Rules to the legislation at the Collegium for Administrative-Economic Cases of the Baku Court of Appeal.