Mr. Gadzhiev graduated from the Legal Department of the Azerbaijan State University in 1983 and stayed on to teach civil law until 1988 when he began working for the Azerbaijan Prosecutor General's office in the department on the supervision of the legality of court decisions in civil cases. In 1993, he was appointed to head the department on the supervision of the legality of the decisions of economic courts. From 1993-1995, he worked at the Ministry of Justice. From 1996-1997 he taught at the Azerbaijan Social and Political College and practiced law as a civil attorney.

Since 1997, Mr. Gadzhiev has been working to promote the activities of the ALA, which was finally registered on February 15, 2000, after three years of continuous struggle. Under Gadzhiev's leadership, the ALA has been promoting legal reform in Azerbaijan, and working to strengthen the rule of law, and advance legal awareness in society.

The Association of Lawyers of Azerbaijan (ALA) was founded on May 20, 1997. The ALA's constituent documents were submitted to the Ministry of Justice on June 12, 1997. The Ministry responded with a letter dated September 5, 1997 stating that registration had been denied. The ALA filed an appeal to the Sabail district court, which ruled in favor of the Ministry of Justice on December 29, 1997.

Association of Lawyers of Azerbaijan

The ALA felt that the decisions of the Ministry of Justice and the Sabail district court were unfounded, but wanted to avoid spending time and money in court. Therefore, the organization conducted a seminar February 16, 1998 in which all the Ministry of Justice's comments were taken into consideration, changes were made in the charter and new constituent documents were prepared and then submitted to the Ministry of Justice on March 10, 1998. Soon after, the Ministry again denied the ALA registration.

However, these registration problems have not stopped the ALA from carrying out a program of activities which includes:

1.educating the population in legal matters
2.improving legislation
3.defending fundamental rights and freedoms
4.providing assistance to NGOs and independent media
5.increasing the professionalism of lawyers and law students
6.creating a network of lawyers.

As a result of the ALA's activities in these areas, several publications have been produced, including "Court statements of lawyers in Azerbaijan" and "A collection of regulations of the Plenum of the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan." At present, members of the ALA are working on several new publications. A member of the board has also prepared and offered a course on advocacy at the Hazar University.

Members of the ALA have taken part in a wide variety of international law-related seminars in different countries. Representatives of many organizations have shown an interest in the work of the ALA and have met with members on a number of occasions.

On June 30, 1998, the ALA, together with the National Democratic Institute, organized a seminar entitled "The problems of registration and the activities of NGOs in Azerbaijan."

Unfortunately, the lack of an office, equipment and financial resources has hindered the ALA from expanding its scope and functioning more effectively.

The ALA did finally obtain official registration on February 15, 2000, nearly three years after it first applied. The reason for this was likely twofold: the Council of Europe had been putting pressure on the government of Azerbaijan to register a series of organizations, including the ALA, which it had been refusing to register for years. The other reason is that just days before the ALA obtained registration, Aslan Ismailov, one of the founders of the organizations since the very beginning, was told by an official from the Ministry of Justice that the ALA would continue to have difficulty as long as he remained one of the founders. He thus withdrew his name from among the list of founders, and the organization was registered shortly thereafter.

Having obtained registration is certainly a positive step, although it is by no means a sign that the government of Azerbaijan is willing to recognize that the ALA represents an alternative of sorts to the Collegium. Aside from registration, the authorities have many other tools to impede public associations and it thus remains to be seen to what extent the authorities allow the ALA to function in practice.