On April 27, 2013, parliamentary by-elections will be held in Nadzaladevi N9, Baghdati N52 and Samtredia N54 election districts, where voters will elect their majoritarian representatives in the Parliament of Georgia after three MPs that won their seats in the 2012 parliamentary elections left the parliament to join the executive branch. The International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA) and Transparency International – Georgia carried out monitoring of processes ahead of the April 27, 2013 parliamentary by-elections.
2013-04-26 13:02 See moreThe Coalition for Independent and Transparent Judiciary responds to vetoing of two bills by the president. Statement of the Coalition about the president’s veto.
2013-04-25 03:05 See moreAccording to the information released today, the Ministry of Internal Affairs detained Irakli Absandze, editor of the politics unit of the “Liberali” Magazine, who was suspected for drug procurement, storage and transportation as per Article 260, Para 1 of the Penal Code of Georgia envisaging imprisonment for up to 11 years term. As Gagi Mosiashvili, Irakli Absnadze’s lawyer reports, Irakli received a parcel from his friend which allegedly turned to be Marihuana. Irakli did not know what was in the parcel- the lawyer declared.
2013-04-24 02:50 See moreWe would like to react on the footage broadcasted on April 22, in evening news of TV Channel 9, which concerned construction of the Hudon Hydro Power Plant. We paid attention to Kakha Kaladze’s, the Minister of Energy and Natrual Resources of Georgia, extremely incorrect statement about NGOs that criticize construction of the Hudon HPP. Namely, Mr. Kaladze reported that: “the future of the state shall not depend on individual NGOs and on funding received by them from abroad for some suspended projects”.
2013-04-23 04:10 See moreIt has been almost three weeks since Adjara senior police official physically abused a driver that had committed a violation. The small story was followed by big developments – local police officer destroyed one of the pieces of evidence proving the truth (a video footage). Another important issue was the ambiguous communication police had with the owner of the CCTV camera Sabir Nuriev and its location. What followed afterwards was an even bigger story of the Interior Ministry’s General Inspection, subsidized by taxpayers’ money, reacting with one-sided, subjective and partial findings.
2013-04-22 03:49 See moreToday, GYLA submitted to the Parliament of Georgia its opinions on pending amendments to the organic law on the Constitutional Court. Furthermore, GYLA joined NGOs statement submitted below: The draft initiated by Vakhtang Khmaladze, head of the Legal Issues Committee on April 4, 2013 aims to introduce amendments to the organic law on the Constitutional Court of Georgia. According to the applied regulations, the Constitutional Court is authorized to suspend application of the law if it considers that normative act might lead to irremediable results.
2013-04-19 08:57 See moreGYLA responds to the April 24 incident in the village of Tsikhisdziri, Kobuleti Municipality, in which officers of Senaki Military Police allegedly abused local population verbally and physically on religious grounds.
2013-04-19 06:22 See moreGeorgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA) and the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) will monitor the manifestation to be held by the National Movement on April 19, 2013 in Tbilisi.
2013-04-18 04:29 See moreOn April 14, the CEC released a statement about the opinion of NGOs on appointment of PEC secretaries. The statement says that “competent opinions about similar issues must be based on the principle of rule of law as opposed to political expediency”. For discussion of these topics, the CEC invites NGOs for public discussions on “The Role of Civil Society in Electoral Process”.
2013-04-16 02:57 See moreGeorgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA) and Penal Reform International welcome initiatives of the government of Georgia for liberalization of criminal justice. Practicing fair trial is one of the most important preconditions for facilitation of democratic processes in the country. Ensuring equality of arms and improving the procedure code will naturally help improve the criminal justice situation in the country. We also believe that there are a number of issues in the draft law that need to be further improved, as well as some other issues that need to be introduced for the legal proposal to actually achieve set goals.
2013-04-15 05:33 See more