Venice Commission encourages Georgian parties to reach consensus on revised Constitution
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The Venice Commission President Gianni Buquicchio said the revision of the Georgian State Constitution "is a major reform meant to transform the current political system into a genuine parliamentary democracy”.
In a statement released last night Buquicchio said the Venice Commission expects to receive shortly the revised draft of the Constitution from the Georgian authorities and will issue an opinion on it in one month, at the October plenary session.
We encourage the Georgian parliament, before finally adopting the revised draft, to make changes in the light of this opinion and of the dialogue with all Georgian political parties”, the statement reads.
In June this year, the Venice Commission issued a positive assessment of the draft revised Constitution, including the declared move towards the fully proportional system of the election of all the members of Parliament.
Buquicchio "specifically welcomed active co-operation and the commitment of the Georgian parliament not to adopt any amendments negatively assessed by the Venice Commission”; however, he said "the postponement of the introduction of the proportional system to 2024, as well as the repeated failure of the Georgian parties to reach consensus on the revised Constitution through negotiations is disappointing”.
It is essentially up to the Georgian parties themselves to conduct further negotiations and the involvement of the Venice Commission is not required for this process. We encourage all the parties to come to a large consensus on the text through constructive dialogue”, Buquicchio said.
The Parliamentary Majority of Georgia also issued a statement yesterday 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 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.
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Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili and the parliamentary majority have held consultations over the proposed changes to the state constitution today.
Although the opinion itself will not be officially published until next week, Venice Commission President Gianni Buquicchio voiced some of his thoughts regarding Georgia’s constitution in an interview with the Georgian Public Broadcaster.
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