Civil Experts say Ministry of Security Pushes for and Obsolete Law

The Ministry of Security toned down the draft law “On Suspension of Activities, Liquidation and Banning of the Extremist Organizations and the Organizations under Foreign Control” after the protests of the national and international civil organizations.

However, civil experts say the new draft “On banning the activity of the extremist organizations and unions” not only maintains several anti-democratic provisions, but also is simply obsolete.

This original draft of the law circulated on February 18, 2003 was giving the power to the ministry of suspending liquidating, and banning any organization, being under “foreign control” and acting against “the interests of Georgia”. Together with the lack of clarification of “Interests of Georgia” the draft was missing any substantive criteria for labeling organization activity as extremism or terrorism. According to the draft the Ministry of Security was allowed to stop the activity of any organization, including the political parties and CSOs without a right to appeal in national courts.

This draft of the law was strongly criticized by CSOs, considering the act as direct threat to their existence and activities.

Yielding to the pressure applied by the civil society and international experts the Ministry of Security has developed a new draft of the law “On banning the activity of the extremist organizations and unions.” Provisions regarding the “organizations under foreign control” were omitted.

Vazha Salamadze, chairman of Georgian Business Law Center says “this [new] draft of the law is significantly improved comparing to the previous one, but there still are certain clauses threatening third sector in Georgia.”

New draft of the law includes articles enabling Ministry of Security to ban the organizations on the basis of signs of extremism in its activity and/or intensions for conducting similar actions, or statements made by the head or the member of the organization on changing the existing government, eliminating sovereignty or threatening territorial integrity of Georgia (article 4).  

Article 5 reads the Ministry of Security noticing these activities makes the warning statement about this type of activities and in case of disobedience appeals the Constitutional Court or the Supreme Court; however if the situation is urgent the Ministry is able to address the court without making warning statement. Banning considers confiscation of the property the organization has and criminal charges brought against the persons making these statements.

CSO representatives developed a joint letter to the Ministry of Security suggesting several amendments to the draft of the law. 

They considered new draft of the law should be the additional mechanism to already existing legal regulations for Ministry of Security in guaranteeing stability of the society. In addition they say draft of the law regulating generally fight with extremism should be developed, where more detailed definition of extremist activity and the state policy in this area should be given.

Vazha Salamadze considers fourth clause of the law is puts disproportionately high responsibility on an organization as it speaks about the liquidation of the organization based on the statements made by one of its ordinary members. “If we have a case of faulty activity of a single person criminal code of Georgia regulates this case, liquidation of the organization is absolutely inadequate action”- he says.

It is not obvious who conducts liquidation of the organization, and more clarification is needed to the part stating about the future of the organizations’ credit debts.

According to article 26 of the constitution of Georgia, the issue of liquidating or banning the activity of the public associations will be regulated by an organic law. Based on this article, Vazha Salamadze considers, this draft of the law is unconstitutional as there already is the law in force “On Suspending or Banning the Activity of the Public Associations”.

Nika Laliashvili, Ministry of Security spokesman, said they have considered majority of arguments explained in the CSO letter; however as CSO representatives discovered later, no suggestions were respected.

The new draft of the law is already discussed by Security Council of Georgia. It has been approved and go ahead is given to the discussion in the parliament.

“There are no more ways left for us to change the law rather than lobbying.” Vazha Salamadze says.

By Julie Giorgadze, CAP Information Officer