Parliament overrides President’s veto on surveillance bill

Georgian lawmakers decided to create a special commission to work on new surveillance guidelines.
Agenda.ge, 30 Nov 2014 - 22:11, Tbilisi,Georgia

Parliament of Georgia has overturned President Giorgi Margvelashvili’s veto on the Government-backed bill on secret wiretapping, which allows the Interior Ministry to retain its direct access to telecom operators’ networks.

And in a compete turn of events, President Margvelashvili has signed and approved the bill he earlier vetoed, causing the new surveillance bill to become law.

At today’s Parliamentary meeting 82 Members of Parliament (MPs) voted in favour of the Parliament-offered bill and 13 voted against it. The bill needed to gain support from at least 76 MPs to allow President Margvelashvili's veto to be overturned.

President Margvelashvili vetoed the Parliament-approved bill yesterday and send a revised version of the document to the legislative body to be discussed. However in Parliament today, the President's proposal was looked over and a vote was held but his version was rejected.

After Parliament voted and overturned President Margvelashvili's veto, the document was again sent to the President to be signed. This afternoon Margvelashvili signed the law he previously vetoed and the document was published at the Legislative Herald of Georgia.

According to the final bill, a double-key system was adopted with one 'key' held by the Interior Ministry and the other by the Privacy Protection Inspector.