DUSHANBE, February 3, Asia-Plus -- First of a series of roundtable meetings formally titled “Provision of Transparency in Law-Making Process” was held in Dushanbe today.

Navruz Samadov, an official with legal advice department within the president’s office, told Asia-Plus before the beginning of the meeting’s work, “We want our society to directly participate in the law-making process.”  “In future, we have to develop legislation in such sectors as agrarian policy, economics, small and medium enterprises support,” said Samadov, “Therefore we are creating conditions for society’s making its contribution to this process.”  

The meeting was held within a new project of the OSCE aimed at binging national legislation into compliance with international human rights standards and staged by the National Association of Political Scientists of Tajikistan under support of the OSCE Center in Dushanbe and with assistance of the President’s Executive Office.  

Abdghani Mamadazimov, head of the National Association of Political Scientists of Tajikistan, has told Asia-Plus that society is not well aware of law-making processes in the country, “and we do not know what bills are considered in parliament and what discussions are conducted on that or this bill.”   

“If it had been an opportunity for society or non-government organizations to participate in the process of discussion, we would had been able to provide public examination and give prognosis that would had given an opportunity to avoid making endless changes and addenda to the laws,” Mamadazimov noted.