Statement by the Coalition for Freedom of Choice about Amendments to the Law on Political Union of Citizens
January 10, 2012
We would like to underline several circumstances concerning the introduced amendments to the Organic Law of Georgia on Political Union of Citizens late in 2011.
1) When passing amendments to the Law on Political Union of Citizens, the Parliament of Georgia breached the procedures estimated by the regulation norms. Namely: Article 2 of the law was added to the text without a second hearing on the day of the third hearing that contradicts Article 155 Part IV of the Regulations of The Parliament of Georgia;
2) The Parliament of Georgia passed the draft-law after the third hearing though MPs had not made any editorial or content notes about the article. Nevertheless, the text [“political unions of citizens and entities envisaged by Part I of Article 6 of the law who have received financing by violating the regulations set by the law and have not spent these sums for the moment this law takes effect are obliged to give back these sums to the donor in no more than 3 days after this law takes effect; if this is not done, the funds will be deposited into the state budget]published on the official website of the Sakanonmdeblo Matsne [news about national legislation] does not coincide with the text passed at the third hearing of the Parliament. The initial version of the article was: “Political unions of citizens and entities envisaged by Part I of Article 6 of the law who have received financing by violating the regulations set by the law…”
3) Draft-amendments to the Law on Political Unions of Citizens passed by the Parliament declared the legal donations received throughout the previous year illegal. It is noteworthy that a new article was hastily added to the law on New Year’s Eve. The article was initiated orally at the session of the Parliament’s legal committee. We, Georgian non-governmental organizations were invited to the discussion of the draft-law, though the committee did not discuss the issue. Furthermore, there was no ballot about this particular proposal. Although the consultations with the Georgian NGOs lasted more than one month at the legal committee, nobody mentioned this issue there. We have grounded doubt that the amendment was introduced suddenly in order to fulfill their desire to seize all financial donations that the political parties had received from Georgian legal entities throughout 2011. Georgian NGOs and diplomatic corps became concerned and protested the adoption of this clearly unconstitutional act by the legislative body of Georgia. As a result, Sakanonmdeblo Matsne published a corrected version of the law.
4) Several days later, on January 3, 2012 media outlets reported that, based on the decree of the Minister of Justice of Georgia, Georgian Sakanonmdeblo Matsne acquired authority to correct editorial mistakes in the normative acts like orthographic and punctuation error(s) that will not change the content of the normative act. This particular amendment took force on December 29, 2011 and it demonstrated that the law passed by the Parliament was amended after the ballot in respond to the protest of Georgian NGOs and diplomats.
All above-listed circumstances give ground to our doubt that the government is trying to make all their illegal activities when introducing amendments to the Law on Political Union of Citizens lawful and justify the difference between the initial text of the law and the text published by the Sakanonmdeblo Matsne. In fact, the government again breached the law when the Minister of Justice granted the authority of amending the law to the public law entity – Sakanonmdeblo Matsne – while only the Parliament could change the text of the law at the third hearing.
On January 4, the same Sakanonmdeblo Matsne released a statement where they noted that the particular authority of the Sakanonmdeblo Matsne did not work for other laws of Georgia and normative acts passed by the Parliament of Georgia. Preparation, discussion and adoption of the normative acts, as well as the rule of publishing them, are regulated by the Regulations of the Parliament of Georgia which has power of the law.”
It is natural that this statement creates more questions.. According to the Georgian legislation, normative acts of Georgia are divided into legislative and sub-legislative normative acts. So, Paragraph 5 of the Minister’s decree # 157 [Georgia’s Sakanonmdeblo Matsne is authorized to correct editorial mistakes in normative acts …] clearly states that the Sakanonmdeblo Matsne is authorized to change the law passed by the Parliament.
Coalition “Freedom of Choice” recommends that the Government of Georgia and Ministry of Justice makes the Minister’s decree # 157 of 2011 compliant with the Constitution. Besides, we share the opinions of the representatives of the diplomatic corps who suggested continuing the process of improving the election environment. With this intention, the Coalition is working on the conclusion of the law as well as other acts passed by the Parliament; based on this conclusion we will prepare legislative proposals to be submitted to the spring session of the Parliament. The initial aims to eradicate shortcomings in the Law on Political Unions, as well as to adopt legal acts which will promote a fair election environment in Georgia. We hope that soon after the spring session starts, the Parliament will decide to continue dialogue with NGOs concerning these issues.
Coalition Freedom of Choice
06.01.12
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