Georgia’s Constitutional Court suspends work of Financial Supervision Agency

The Constitutional Court of Georgia has accepted the position of the National Bank of Georgia (NBG) and suspended the work of the Financial Supervision Agency.

Opposition parties argued about a new bill that envisaged the banking supervisory function to be removed from the country’s national bank.

Amendments to the Law on the National Bank of Georgia were adopted at its third hearing on July 17 with 80 votes in favour and 19 against.

The bill saw the NBG stripped of its banking monitoring service; this function was transferred to a separate agency, which would be the solo body to supervise banking in the country.

The bill also defined the rules of setting up such an agency, named Georgia’s Financial Monitoring Agency.

After the amendments to the law, the President of Georgia was no longer able to participate in Agency’s elections. In the complainants’ opinion that was against the Law of Georgia's Constitution.

At the same time the complainants required the Financial Monitoring Agency to stop its activities until the Constitutional Court passed a sentence on the case.

The National Movement and Free Democrats parties applied to the Constitutional Court on September 22.