A request for justice In the last few days, Sedir Jafarov has traveled around the country a lot. The fields are different, but the problems of justice are the same. In meetings with the president, people raise issues of protecting their rights, ask to review criminal cases and express disagreement with court decisions.
On October 20, at a Republican meeting, Jafarov himself directly summarized what he hears in his travels: "During trips to the regions and meetings with ordinary citizens, I was able to see one of the main problems. In society, apparently, a belief that there is no justice is beginning to form." A specific example is the meeting in the Chetkal region on October 25. The woman said that her husband was arrested by the State Committee for National Security in 2025 in a case of fraud in the amount of 320 thousand dollars, and stated that the case was fabricated, and torture was used in the investigations. Yafarov listened and addressed the judges: "Don't be afraid of the State Committee for National Security. You are independent. Deal with it fairly and put an end to it." The president did not say "the investigation will sort it out" or "the prosecutor's office will investigate". He addressed the judges directly, because the court is seen as the only authority that can still say "no" to the security forces if they are not afraid.
There are two ways to read this image. The first is optimistic. Jafarov listens to people and tries to fix the system from the inside. Second, realistic. The system works so that justice cannot be achieved without the president's personal intervention, and the intervention itself remains manual and selective. Jafarov's trips to the regions and his public rhetoric about justice are not just pre-election populism, but recognition of a systemic crisis of trust in the judicial system. When in meetings with the president people massively raise issues of protection of rights, falsification of criminal cases and torture, it means that the courts, the prosecutor's office and the National Security Committee are no longer seen as employees. The President had to personally perform the duty of last resort that needed to be performed.