Georgia’s President has come up with an initiative that would see representatives of the authority’s legislative body become permanent members of the National Security Council (NSC), a governmental body chaired by the President.
President Giorgi Margvelashvili expressed his viewpoint on the future role of the NSC at a press briefing before lawmakers discuss the draft law about the country's defence for the second hearing in early September.
Margvelashvili, who also presented his viewpoint to foreign diplomats, experts, non-governmental organizations and opposition lawmakers today, believed it would be reasonable if Georgia's Parliament Speaker and head of the Parliament Committees of the Defence and Security and Foreign Relations, as well as Chief of General Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces to become the permanent participants of the NSC.
The draft law was prepared by three MPs: Vakhtang Khmaladze, Irakli Sesiashvili and former lawmaker and current Secretary of the National Security Council Irina Imerlishvili.
However, the proposal of the amendments was determined by the new constitution of Georgia that went into force upon the inauguration of the new president on November 17, 2013, which cut the president's powers.
Furthermore, the power of the NSC was sidelined by the Security and Crisis Management Council, which was established late last year and which is chaired by the Prime Minister.
"The effective role of the [NSC] ensures to receive important political decisions, in particular issues that are related to peace, war, truce, and to send troops to other countries territories, to allow the entrance and transit of other countries troops in Georgia, preparing important military documents, to cut the power of one of the self-governmental unit as well as announcing the state of emergency in the country which affects the lives of our citizens,” Margvelashvili said at the press briefing.
Margvelashvili stressed the NSC was an important part of Georgia’s constitutional and state system. He highlighted the National Security Council as the constitutional body of the authority and it "has to work effectively".
"The National Security Council must be the place where members of Parliament and representatives of the executive body can discuss the important issues of the country,” Margvelashvili said.
"The consensus on what kind of decisions is needed for our country is reached at the Security Council.”
The current permanent members of the NSC are the President, the secretary of the NSC, Prime Minister, Defence, Foreign Affairs, Finance and Internal Affairs Ministers.
US ambassador to Georgia, Richard Norland, who was attending the meeting, said that it was a "very interesting discussion” about how Georgia should organize itself to deal with the national security crisis situations.
"This is set of issues that the United States embassy has tried to contribute through USAID-funded report that the Atlantic Council of Georgia produced,” Norland said.
President Margvelashvili also focused that NSC must discuss the main defence documents of the country including National Security Conception, National Defence Strategy and Threat Assessment Document.
Meanwhile, after the meeting Margvelashvili’s press office released the document titled – Vision of the President on NSC where he focused also on the rights of the Presidents including that he was the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.