A constitutional referendum was held in

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...

on 18 March 2009. It consisted of 29 measures voted on separately; the most controversial were a measure to abolish presidential

term limit A term limit is a legal restriction that limits the number of terms an officeholder may serve in a particular elected office. When term limits are found in presidential and semi-presidential systems they act as a method of curbing the potential ...

s and a measure to greatly restrict

press freedom Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the fundamental principle that communication and expression through various media, including printed and electronic media, especially published materials, should be considered a right to be exerc ...

. The measures passed, with approval of measures between 87.14% and 91.76%, disapproval between 4.59% and 7.24% and invalid votes between 3.64% and 5.70%; turnout was 71.08%. This provision of the constitutional amendment was condemned by the

Venice Commission The Venice Commission, officially European Commission for Democracy through Law, is an advisory body of the Council of Europe, composed of independent experts in the field of constitutional law. It was created in 1990 after the fall of the Berl ...

of the Council of Europe, which stated that "As a rule, it can be said that the abolition of existing limits preventing the unlimited re-election of a President is a step back, in terms of democratic achievements". Professor

Wojciech Sadurski Wojciech Sadurski (born 5 June 1950) is a Polish and Australian scholar of constitutional law. As of 2020, he is Challis Professor in Jurisprudence at the University of Sydney and Professor in the Centre for Europe in the University of Warsaw. A ...

, Challis Professor of Jurisprudence at the Faculty of Law of Sydney University, in his legal opinion stated that the conduct of the Azeri government in the adoption of the amendment violated the principle of transparency and that it constituted a breach of European law under the European Convention on Human Rights as well as the international law. The amendment was also criticized by the Azerbaijani opposition.Opposition Condemns Changes to Azeri Constitution
/ref> On the basis of the amendment in 2013 Ilham Aliyev ran for president for the third time.

References

Constitutional referendums in Azerbaijan 2009 in Azerbaijan Reelection {{Azerbaijan-election-stub