The Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe (PACE) approved a resolution (see draft resolution) on honoring obligations and commitments by Georgia at a session on January 24. Hungarian parliamentarian Matyas Eorsi, who was one of the co-rapporteurs on Georgia, said, during the discussion, that the resolution “is critical; but Friends should be critical.”
Specifically, the draft calls on Georgia to revise the Constitutional changes adopted in February 2004, which, according to CoE’s Venice Commission conclusion, grant excessive powers to the President. In another recommendation, the PACE calls the Georgian government to “substantially and without any delay, revise the recently adopted autonomous model for Adjara,” which is described in a resolution as “an inadequate model of autonomy.” The resolution also recommends lowering the 7% electoral threshold “in order to create conditions for a pluralist and genuinely representative parliament.
“It will be untrue if the co-rapporteurs would report that in Georgia now everything is fine, but, on the other hand, it will be unfair to claim that in Georgia nothing is doing well,” Matyas Eorsi said during the debates over the resolution at the PACE session on January 24.
He underlined that the main source of criticism is triggered by fact that “the current Georgian leadership is ignoring our [Council of Europe’s] advice and recommendations.”
“They [the Georgian authorities] are entitled to do so of course, it is a sovereign country. If they believe that it is good to go on their own way, it is their choice. But we have our experience: the governments, who have too much self-confidence and believe they can ignore the European experience, I think they will be in a huge crisis in the future,” Matyas Eorsi said.
Bulgarian parliamentarian Evgeni Kirilov, who was another co-rapporteur on Georgia, also stressed that some statements made by Georgian officials indicating that Georgia is not obliged to take into account a number of the CoE recommendations, “is not really the right approach.”
President Saakashvili said, on January 17, while commenting on criticism voiced in the PACE draft resolution that these recommendations are “good, but it is for us to make the decision.”
Matyas Eorsi called the Georgian leadership to follow the Council of Europe’s recommendations, especially concerning the revising of the country’s constitution and Adjara’s autonomous status. “It [Adjara] should be a real autonomy and it will be a good model for Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the future,” he added.
In a response to this criticism, Georgian MP Giga Bokeria, who chairs the Georgian delegation to the PACE, called on the Council of Europe parliamentarians “not to put Adjara in the same basket” as South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
“The situation [concerning Adjara] is quite different. We agree that we should revise the model, which was a transitional model from the beginning for Adjara. But at the same time it is an issue of a regional sub-government. The Adjarian people are Georgians; there is no specific reason [to take] a specific attitude towards that region of Georgia, unlike Abkhazia and South Ossetia, wherein the Georgian government is ready to offer them specific and substantial autonomy. In the case of Adjara, in the context of the territorial-administrative reform of Georgia, Adjara, as well as other regions of Georgia, should be given a real regional self-government and that is what we are committed to,” Giga Bokeria said.
MP Giga Bokeria also added that the Georgian government “understands that we have to do much more.”
On a positive note, the document acknowledged an “unyielding resolve” by Georgia’s government “to carry out far-reaching political, legal, social and economic reforms.”
But to underline the positive trends in Georgia, which have taken place since the new authorities came into power as a result of the 2003 ‘Rose Revolution’, the Georgian delegation proposed one paragraph as an amendment to the resolution, which specifies the new authorities achievements in more details. This amendment has been approved by the PACE session.
The PACE resolved to continue its monitoring procedure and to review the compliance with Georgia’s commitments and obligations in October 2005.
Changes Made in the Adopted Text
The adopted text differs in several ways from the draft resolution.
The following passage was added to the first paragraph:
"The Assembly welcomes the progress the Georgian authorities have achieved in the fight against corruption, the reform of the police force and the protection of religious freedom. It also welcomes the election of the new ombudsman and the creation of civil monitoring groups at the police stations throughout the country, the harmonization of media legislation with Council of Europe standards, the full decriminalization of libel law and the steps towards transformation of State television into public service broadcasting."
Paragraph 3 was added:
"In this regard, the Assembly is encouraged by President Saakashvili’s initiative to propose a peace plan for the two breakaway regions. It calls on the Georgian authorities to negotiate its terms with representatives of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, who should seize every opportunity to end the two longstanding conflicts and their damaging consequences for all the citizens of Georgia. The Assembly also calls on Russsia to do its utmost to support the peace process and the restoration of the territorial integrity of Georgia."
The underlined addition was made to the paragraph 7:
"The Rose Revolution and the two subsequent elections, viewed on the whole as free and fair by the international observers,resulted in a very strong government, which may be an asset in dealing with the country’s political…"
In the same paragraph, a reference to "basically no" parliamentary opposition existing in the new parliament was changed by reference to "weak" parliamentary opposition.
Paragraph 9 ii (b) calls upon the government to revise the recently adopted autonomous model for Adjaria in the context of territorial and administrative reform of Georgia, in line with the Opinion of the Venice Commission; This is a softened change from the draft which called for making the revision "substantially and without delay". The underlined text was inserted at insistence of the Georgian delegation, which claims that Adjara’s self-government would be improved in the context of general administrative reforms in Georgia.
Paragraph 9 iii reads "with regard to the Meskhetian population – create, without any further delay, legal, administrative and political conditions for the start of the process of their repatriation with a view to its completion by 2011".
The finalized paragraph refers to specific date, instead of "the foreseeable future" as provided in the draft.
Article 9 vi (b) was changed to refer to the proposed changes to the Constitutional Court instead of reference to the Council of Justice: "before their entry in force, consult Council of Europe experts on the recent Constitutional amendments on the appointment of judges of the Supreme and the Constitutional Courts of Georgia, in order to ensure their compatibility with Council of Europe standards and principles. The Assembly is particularly concerned that some of the proposed changes, notably the exclusive right of the President to nominate candidates for judges combined with the provision that all sitting judges will be dismissed upon entry in force of the new rules, but also the possiblity that judges may serve two consecutive instead of one single mandate, may have a negative effect on the independence of these crucially important judicial institutions"
Underlined text was added to the paragraph 9 vii
b. consider urgent measures to alleviate the dramatic overcrowding in prisons and pre-trial detention centres, including through amnesty for some vulnerable categories of prisoners, such as ill, young and elderly offenders, expanded criteria for and use of non-custodial sentences, and broader application of alternatives to pre-trial detention;
c. eradicate the “culture of violence” which continues in Georgian prisons and pre-trial detention centres and has included incidents of torture and ill-treatment by law enforcement officers, through effective preventive measures, systematic investigation of allegations including timely medical examination and forceful sanctioning of proven incidents;