Parliamentary Majority: “Constitutional amendments will be adopted at autumn session”

The Parliamentary Majority of Georgia has issued a statement this afternoon saying that an attempt of consultations with opposition parties have failed so the Parliamentary Majority will approve the draft constitutional changes at the autumn session.

The statement said that the current drafts of the constitutional amendments ensure a strong parliament, increasing the power of parliamentary opposition, significant improvement of human rights protection and independence of court and self-governments.

It stressed that the draft constitution involves no norm that would improve subjective political positions of the ruling party.

"In addition to this, the constitutional changes rule out creation of any kind of autocracy in long run in Georgia”, the statement read.

It added that despite all of this, the opposition refused to support the draft constitution after which the Parliamentary Majority suggested them to write down the norms which the opposition would like to see in the document. The statement said that the opposition parties never did so, which meant that a dialogue was made impossible.

"The actions of the opposition made it clear that the goal of the opposition was not to reach a consensus”, the statement read.

The Parliamentary Majority said that the next round of consultations is now nonsensical both in Georgia and abroad so they will not go to Strasbourg where the Venice Commission had suggested to host and moderate consultations between the Parliamentary majority and opposition parties in order to reach a consensus.

"At the autumn session, the Parliamentary majority will adopt with editorial changes the constitutional changes that were agreed upon at its two hearings”, the statement said.

It added that once it has done so, for the first time since the restoration of its independence Georgia will have a constitution that rules out any sort of autocracy and ensures the stable and democratic development of the country.