PACE Issues Draft Resolution on Georgia

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) will discuss a draft resolution on honoring of obligations and commitments by Georgia at an Assembly session in late January.

The provisional version of the resolution, which was issued by the PACE Monitoring Committee last December, notes that the ?Georgian authorities continue to demonstrate an unyielding resolve to carry out far-reaching political, legal, social and economic reforms? and recommends that the government ?maintain and accelerate the momentum of reforms in accordance with Council of Europe standards and principles.?

?The post-revolutionary situation should not become an alibi for hasty decisions and neglect for democratic and human rights standards,? the draft of resolution reads.

The draft resolution reads that there is ?a semi-presidential system with very strong powers of the president, basically no parliamentary opposition, a weaker civil society, a judicial system which is not yet sufficiently independent and functioning, underdeveloped or non-existing local democracy, a self-censored media and an inadequate model of autonomy in Adjara.?

The draft resolution also recommends that the Georgian government create conditions in which a strong and efficient system of democratic checks and balances will emerge.

?In order to consolidate the system of democratic checks and balances, the Assembly asks the Georgian authorities to review the constitutional changes of February 2004, by taking into account the Opinion of the Venice Commission, especially with regard to the strong powers of the President. Before the next parliamentary elections, they should also lower the electoral threshold of 7 percents, in order to create conditions for a pluralist and genuinely representative parliament,? the draft resolution reads.

A delegation of Georgian parliamentarians will leave for Strasbourg to participate in the PACE session on January 23.