Parliament Discusses Interior Ministry Reform

Parliament launched on June 12 deliberation of a voluminous package of legislative amendments envisaging decoupling of security and intelligence agencies from the Interior Ministry.

A separate agency, State Security Service, should be set up from August 1, according to the government-proposed plan.

The main goal of the proposal is “de-concentration of excessive powers within a single ministry”, Deputy Interior Minister Levan Izoria told lawmakers on June 12, adding that the plan is also in line with Georgian Dream ruling coalition’s pre-election promise to separate security agencies from the Interior Ministry, leaving in the latter police functions.

Among some other units, counter-terrorism center; counter-intelligence; anti-corruption agency; operative-technical department, which is eavesdropping agency in charge of surveillance operations, and special operations department will be separated from the Interior Ministry to form the State Security Service.

A candidate for head of the State Security Service will be selected by Prime Minister and after approval by the government members, nomination will be submitted to the Parliament for confirmation, according to the package of bills, which includes amendments to 55 laws. 

A candidate will need support of at least 76 lawmakers in the 150-seat Parliament to be confirmed as head of the State Security Service for a six-year term; this procedure of confirmation is not yet part of the proposed package, but will be laid out in parliament’s procedures and possibly in the proposed bill as well, according to GD lawmakers.

In case of a failure to gain support of the Parliament, the same candidate can be re-nominated, but if rejected by lawmakers again, another candidate should be selected.

Head of the State Security Service can serve only one six-year term in office.

The Parliament will also have power to sack the head of the service, who has to deliver report to lawmakers once in a year. A detailed procedure of voting head of the service out of office has yet to be drafted by the Parliament.

If the Parliament fails to confirm a candidate of the agency by August 1 – the date when the State Security Service should be established, the PM will appoint an acting head, who will serve before approval of a candidate by the legislative body.

Deputy heads of the State Security Service will be appointed by the Prime Minister.

The planned State Security Service, with about 4,000 employees, will require funding of GEL 36.7 million in a period between August and year’s end. This amount of funding will be allocated from the Interior Ministry’s 2015 GEL 638.7 million budget.

Lawmakers from the opposition UNM party were strongly critical of the proposal, arguing that it is just a “mere formality” envisaging only “mechanical” splitting up of the ministry, which would not result in increase of public oversight over the security agencies and its accountability.

The interior and security ministries merged in 2004, shortly after the UNM came into power. Now it unites under its subordination broad range of “power-wielding agencies” from police, security and intelligence services to border guard and coast guard.

“Even if this is just a mechanical decoupling, as argued by the opposition – although it is more than that – it is already an important step, because it addresses demand of the public to de-concentrate excessive power within a single ministry,” Deputy Interior Minister, Levan Izoria, told lawmakers during the debates in the Parliament on June 12.

“This is the key part of the reform, but this is not the end of large-scale reforms; this is the beginning. Further institutional reforms, both in within the security agency and the interior ministry will continue after decoupling,” Izoria said.

One of the main concerns voiced by rights groups and civil society representatives, as well as by some GD ruling coalition lawmakers, over the proposed package of legislative amendments were related to potential duplication of functions between the Interior Ministry and the planned State Security Service.

The issue was discussed thoroughly when the package was heard at the parliamentary committee for legal affairs earlier this week.  Concerns were voiced that by giving security agencies the right to carry out law enforcement tasks such as investigations, arrests and detention without a clear-cut distribution of authority would pose a risk of abuse of power and duplication of traditional police activities.

GD MP Vakhtang Khmaladze, who chairs legal affairs committee, told lawmakers on June 12 that “lion’s share of 20 pages of remarks” to the package, among them related to potential duplication of functions, was “accepted” by the Interior Ministry representative and would be reflected in the bills by the time of second hearing.

Deputy Interior Minister Izoria said that “those provisions, which are ambiguous” in terms of possible duplication of functions will be addressed during the second reading of the bills.

One of the issues, which also triggers concern of civil society representatives and some GD lawmakers, especially of those from the Republican Party, is related to so called ODRs – an informal name of security agents, which stems from the Russian abbreviation ОДР (active reserve officer).

ODRs are security officers, who are assigned by the Interior Ministry in various institutions – a practice which is a holdover from the Soviet times when KGB agents were attached to various entities and which was also practiced under every post-Soviet government in Georgia. The practice has long been source of civil society organization’s criticism, especially in cases when such security officers are attached to entities like the public broadcaster and communications regulatory commission.

During the hearings at a parliamentary committee earlier this week, an Interior Ministry representative said that this practice was “wrongly” perceived as a holdover of the Soviet times and tried to defend it by arguing that the similar practice was also in number of the European states. Although the Interior Ministry officials say that they are strongly against of scrapping it, they are ready to elaborate in details functions and duties of these officers in the bill in order to prevent misuse of this practice.

But during the debates at the parliamentary session on June 12, lawmakers from the Republican Party further voiced their concerns over the issue. “Republicans are demanding categorically that we do not need ODRs or any other form of this Soviet holdover,” MP Davit Berdzenishvili said, adding that the Interior Ministry promised to propose an “European standards” in this regard and Republican MPs would keep on insisting on the ministry to deliver on its promise during the second hearing of the package.

The package will be put on vote at the next session of the Parliament, scheduled for June 24.

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