Bill on Prosecutor’s Office Reform Passed with Second Reading

Parliament passed on September 16 with 69 votes to 12 with its second reading package of legislative amendments introducing new rule of selecting and electing chief prosecutor for a non-renewable six-year term.

Currently Prime Minister appoints and dismisses the Chief Prosecutor upon nomination of the Minister of Justice.

The bill, which has yet to be adopted with its third reading, envisages more complicated procedures for electing Chief Prosecutor introducing in the process the Parliament and new body, Prosecutorial Council; the government and Justice Minister will still keep a significant role in the process.

The bill envisages setting up of 15-member Prosecutorial Council, which will be chaired by the Justice Minister, who will be an ex-officio member.

8 seats in the Council will go to prosecutors elected by the Conference of Prosecutors – a body, which is also a novelty envisaged by the bill.
 
2 seats will be allocated to parliament members – one of them will be representative of the parliamentary majority group and another one representing lawmakers, who are not members of the majority group in the parliament; selecting of an MP for this latter quota will be up to the opposition lawmakers.

2 seats will go to judges, selected by the High Council of Justice.

And the two remaining members of the Prosecutorial Council will go to members of civil society and academic circles, elected by parliament through a simple majority.

According to the bill, the selection of a candidate for chief prosecutor starts with the Justice Minister holding consultations with representatives of civil society and academic circles.

The Justice Minister then nominates three candidates to the Prosecutorial Council; the Minister will have to explain the choice.
 
The Prosecutorial Council then has to endorse one of the three candidates with 2/3 majority votes – that is support of at least 10 council members; in case of a deadlock, the Justice Minister will have to name new candidates.

After a candidate is endorsed by the Prosecutorial Council, the nomination will go to the government, which has the power to block the nomination and in that case the process of selecting new candidates will start over.
 
If the nomination offered by the Prosecutorial Council is endorsed by the government, the candidate will then have to be confirmed by parliament.

Support by a simple majority – that is at least 76 MPs – will be required for a candidate to be confirmed as Chief Prosecutor for a non-renewable six-year term.
 
Opposition lawmakers criticize the bill for keeping the government and ruling coalition’s strong role in the process of nomination and confirmation of a candidate for Chief Prosecutor.
 
When the bill was debated with its second reading on September 4, Free Democrats opposition party MP Shalva Shavgulidze said that under the current proposal the government and the ruling coalition maintain “full control” over the process and therefore it fails to depoliticize the Prosecutor’s Office.

UNM MP Giorgi Vashadze described the bill as an “imitation of reform”.

Republican Party GD MP Vakhtang Khmaladze, who chairs the parliamentary committee for legal affairs, said that the proposed reform will make the prosecutor’s office accountable before parliament and create mechanisms for parliamentary oversight on the prosecutor’s office. He said that the bill is a significant step towards making the prosecutor’s office politically independent.

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