Human Rights Center about Constitutional Amendments Initiated in June of 2013

From 2013 Georgia amends the governance model and moves to parliamentary system that first of all means relevant reflection of the government division principle in the Constitution through increasing and reinforcing the role of the Parliament. Parliamentary system envisages balance between legislative and executive branches of the government and accountability of the government to the parliament.

Human Rights Center positively evaluates all the amendments that ensure formulation of the balanced model of the governance through relevant reflection of the government’s division and balance principle in the Constitution of Georgia.

HRC also appreciates the steps taken by the Parliament towards the perfection of the Constitution of Georgia and presents its evaluation about several initiated amendments.

In accordance to one of the draft-amendments to the Constitution initiated in June of 2013, Article 291 of the Constitution of Georgia will be annulled which states: “Every citizen of Georgia shall not have the right to hold position of the president, prime-minister and chairman of the parliament if he/she holds dual citizenship.”

Authors of the constitutional bill believe that “unequal legal rights of state-political officials” is the reason to pass this bill. In accordance to the clarification letter, the bill was drafted because state-political senior officials have unequal legal rights including president, MPs and chairman of the parliament, ministers and prime-minister. In accordance to the Constitution of Georgia, dual citizens shall have right to become Members of Parliament, ministers while they shall not have right to occupy positions of prime-minister, chairman of the parliament and president. Authors of the constitutional bill believe it is violation of the equality principle between state officials.

We cannot agree with the bill authors in the allegation that president of Georgia, parliament chairman and prime minister as political officials are in unequal position with MPs and ministers as state political officials. Inequality occurs if different approaches are observed towards the officials with one constitutional-legal status and authority. Constitutional-legal status and authority of the parliament chairman is much different from the constitutional-legal status and authority of the MP; unlike the Member of Parliament, Chairman is authorized to act as interim head of the state in emergency situation; the same can be said about prime-minister. PM and ministers do not have equal constitutional status and authorities. State-political officials could have been referred unequally if a person holding dual citizenship would not have right to become a defense minister but would have right to become a foreign minister. It is also noteworthy that aforementioned three political figures are senior governmental officials who implement the function of the head of government and commander-in-chief of the country in the cases regulated by the Constitution. State leader is guarantee of the national independence and sovereignty. So, it is not reasonable to equalize these three senior positions with ordinary MPs and ministers due to their different constitutional status and authorities.

We fully share the conclusion of the Venice Commission which states that President of Georgia, Parliament Chairman and Prime-Minister are significant part of the public sector of the government; they hold “part of state sovereignty” and state has legitimate right to request particular trust and confidence to these people (http://www.venice.coe.int/webforms/documents/?pdf=CDL(2010)062-e).

We also agree with the conclusion of the Venice Commission to read Article 291 of the Constitution together with the Article 12 according to which dual citizenship is completely excluded though only with few exceptions. President of Georgia grants Georgian citizenship to foreign citizen only in two cases: if she/he has special merit before Georgia or grant the citizenship is due to state interests.

Dual citizenship will always be issue of responsibilities for the aforementioned three governmental officials towards the countries they are citizens of. In accordance to the national legislation, Georgian citizenship is “Citizenship means a political and legal bond with the Georgian State, which is reflected in reciprocal rights and obligations, and is based on the respect for human dignity and recognition of fundamental human rights and freedoms.” In this trend, reciprocal obligation of the senior official to two countries might turn into interest conflict. First of all, obligations before the country is tax payment, obligatory military service and other issues. Consequently, holding dual citizenship might contain some threats for senior governmental officials. Also, primary function of the President of Georgia, as of a commander-in-chief, is to protect state sovereignty, to ensure state security and to settle internal issues without interference of foreign country. Besides that, president is commander-in-chief of the country and country’s representative in foreign relations; he is head of National Security Council and is responsible for the state security and protection of sovereignty. Thus, it will be difficult to divide the obligations before several countries he/she is citizen of. Consequently, we believe regulation of the Article 291 shall not be annulled; just the opposite it shall be widened and refer to MPs, Cabinet of Ministers and members of the National Security Council due to their constitutional-legal status and authorities.

Human Rights Center negatively evaluates reduction of the parliamentary quorum necessary to pass the constitutional amendments and to override the President’s veto from ¾ to 2/3. 

We believe, the Constitution of Georgia and any amendment to it shall become topic of public-political discussion and agreement. Constitution is state document and it does not belong to any political party. Our practice shows that Constitution of Georgia was amended several times due to political interests of different parties through ignoring public opinion. High quorum (3/4) will promote steadiness and stability of the document; the threat of using the Constitution in accordance to the interests of any concrete political party will also mitigate.

Also, we know that parliamentary majority never faced problem of obtaining support of 100 MPs (2/3) and could always suit the Constitution to its inner-party interests; as for high quorum (3/4 that is 112 MPs), it will complicate the amendment of the act without large public-political consensus that is positive decision. Political parties from the parliament will have to cooperate and amend the Constitution only through consensus. We believe the Constitution is the document of public consensus and not an instrument in the hand of any political power. Thus, we think the regulation to have ¾ quorum shall not be changed that will promote cooperation between political parties and increase civic engagement in the process.

Human Rights Center positively evaluates restriction of prime-minister’s extreme power and to deprive legislative function from him that is special prerogative for the legislative body of our country.