Opinions on draft amendments to the Election Code of Georgia

The Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA), Transparency International – Georgia, the New Generation – New Initiative (nGnI) and the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) have been actively observing the process of negotiations for improvement of election environment. On June 30 we, the organizations, expressed our strong position on the issues agreed by eight political parties, having assessed hem as insufficient for actual improvement of Election Legislation.

On August 1, representatives of non-governmental organizations attended the meeting of a special editorial group discussing the draft of pending amendments to the Election Code. We think that legislative formulations of agreement reached among eight political parties examined at the editorial group meeting, require significant elaboration. Even if they are developed, we still consider improper to limit the process of improving election environment to only discussion of agreed issues, considering their insignificance. It should be noted that the draft submitted at the working group meeting of the editorial group did not concentrate on number of important issues such as: specification of voters’ lists, establishment of special commission for monitoring, interagency coordination council and the rule of its operation and media monitoring. As you are already aware, the draft amendments to the Election Code were initiated in the Parliament of Georgia at the session of the bureau on December 19. Mentioned organizations attempted to play role in developing certain legislative norms. Below we will submit problems identified by us in new formulations of certain norms of election legislation, as well as the possible ways for their improvement. We are ready to review the recommendations with all interested parties involved in the negotiation process. Furthermore, in the nearest future we will submit to the Parliament of Georgia legal formulations of recommendations prepared by four NGOs on all issues that we consider important for actual improvement of election environment in Georgia.