TI-Georgia: Open Governance Parliamentary Council a Formality

On October 26, Transparency International-Georgia, a local watchdog, published a report evaluating the activities of the permanent parliamentary council on Open Governance, a consultative body designed to bring together MPs and civil society actors in a bid to enhance the transparency of governance and legislative process.

The report, covering the period from June 17, 2022, to July 31, 2023, reveals that the Council is failing to address the trend towards diminishing transparency of the Parliament and of the legislative process. The report says the Council became largely a formality.

Some of the key findings presented in the report are:

• The Parliament no longer takes on board the suggestions of civil society. Only one out of 21 recommendations submitted by six CSOs was included in the action plan for 2023-2024.
• The Council ignores the degradation of the openness and transparency of the Parliament, and restrictions on access to the Parliament building. “For years, a metal barrier was placed at the entrance of the Parliament, ” the watchdog notes.
• The Council fails to respond to the crisis in advancing Open Governance by the executive.
• According to the report, the current convocation of the Parliament has actively pursued a policy of making the legislative body less transparent. For instance, in 2022, it revoked permanent access to the Parliament for some local and international NGOs. This move, the report says, has created a significant obstacle for monitoring the legislature.

During the reporting period, the Council held four sessions and operated five working groups to fulfill obligations envisioned in the 2021-2022 Action Plan. Out of the 19 obligations from the plan, ten were fully or essentially fulfilled, six were partially fulfilled, while three obligations remained unfulfilled, according to the report.

“It is noteworthy that the Parliament has not fulfilled those ambitious obligations which would have led to significant improvements in enhancing the openness of the Parliament,” the report reads.

According to the watchdog, the action plan for 2023-2024 was approved belatedly, and it includes only three commitments which primarily center around analyzing and studying different practices. It does not prioritize tangible outcomes aimed at enhancing citizen participation in the Parliamentary process, and neither does it improve the transparency of the Parliament.

The report offers a set of recommendations:

• The Council should take a keen interest in the state of Open Governance in the executive and hold a public hearing, to exercise its duty of oversight;
• The Council and its members must respond to the decline in Parliamentary openness, which includes hardened entrance requirements in the Parliament building, hindering interested stakeholders (e.g. NGOs) from exercising monitoring functions;
• The process of implementation of the Council’s action plan should be active, including working groups and individual activity of the member MPs.
• The Council should fulfill its commitments and achieve tangible results in improving the openness of the Parliament;
• It is essential that the initiative aimed at making changes to the regulations regarding the information published on the Parliament’s website becomes law;
• The aims of the Council should be more ambitious.

Also Read:

• 17/10/2023 – TI-Georgia: Parliament is Becoming a Closed Institution
• 02/10/2023 – TI-Georgia: TVs Lose Money, Pro-Government Media Dominates the Ads Market

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