On March 23 Tbilisi Board of Administrative Affairs declared admissible the lawsuit of the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association on declaring partially void governmental order #66 of February 9.2006 on “Allocating funds from the state budget to the budgets of the territorial units.”

According to the first paragraph of the order, the government of Georgia orders the Ministry of Finance to allocate 23,500,00 GEL for the budgets of various territorial units. The second paragraph obliges the Ministry of Finance and Presidential Envoys to control implementation of the order. Considering the Georgian law on local governance and self-governance and the European Charter on local governance GYLA presumes that granting of the authority to the state presidential envoys is illegal and the part of the administrative act should be invalidated.

Georgia should carry out effective steps towards establishing effective local self-governance, however disputed governmental order is an inhibiting factor thereto. Granting such authority to presidential envoys will have negative impact on decentralization.

Administrative Board of Tbilisi City Court held that the lawsuit met all the legislative requirements.  The case was considered admissible and the hearing on merits will take place on April 12.2006.