On March 13, 2015 GYLA, on behalf of one IDP applied to the Ministry of Internally Displaced Persons from the Occupied Territories, Accommodation and Refugees of Georgia and requested partial invalidation of the normative acts which caused direct discrimination of a group of IDPs under the sign of citizenship. Namely, according to applicable regulations, the Ministry does not examine applications about provision of housing filed by IDP families with dual citizenship. At this point, applications submitted by 218 IDP families were ignored only for the reason that their members had foreign citizenship.
All IDPs are entitled to have adequate housing within Georgian boarders before their return to permanent place of residence. The state is obliged to ensure them with adequate housing, however, at this point, the Ministry fulfils its housing obligation only in terms of IDP families which are Georgian citizens. This is a discriminative approach under the sign of citizenship in terms of individuals who are in a same condition. According to applicable normative acts, IDPs who are foreign citizens are deprived of the chance to have equal access to the state housing program.
GYLA calls on the Government of Georgia and the Ministry of Internally Displaced Persons from the Occupied Territories, Accommodation and Refugees of Georgia to ensure compliance of its normative acts with anti-discrimination law and to eliminate the discriminative regulations.
