Ruling party head says US Embassy’s statement regarding Inspector’s Service ‘shakes confidence in western partners’
Kobakhidze once again emphasised that based on the legislative amendments, the authority of the State Inspector’s Service ‘have been broadly expanded.’ Photo: Georgian Dream press office/Archive.
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Ruling Georgian Dream party Head Irakli Kobakhidze has stated that the US Embassy’s statement, which criticises GD for the abolition of the State Inspector’s Service, ‘shakes the confidence of the Georgian public in western partners.’
The US Embassy released a statement yesterday saying that the replacement of the State body with two new agencies ‘undermines government accountability.’
We have 30 years of very successful collaboration with our partners. We often take advice from them, and of course, we take that advice into account. There are, unfortunately, exceptional cases in which we hear unfair and incorrect assessments from them and this is another example of it,” Kobakhidze said
The Georgian government adopted the bill replacing the State Inspector’s Service, which investigated alleged offences committed by state officials and law enforcement agencies, with the Special Investigation and Personal Data Protection services on December 30, despite the calls of foreign diplomats, NGOs and the opposition to pause the process.
U.S. Embassy Statement on the Ruling Party’s Rushed, End-of-Year Legislation https://t.co/ulZvIBm2Yq
— U.S. Embassy Tbilisi (@usingeo) January 3, 2022
Kobakhidze said that there are ‘factual inaccuracies’ in the statement, noting that ‘no services were abolished, but one service was split in two.’
Overall it is an unfair statement. There are inaccuracies, including factual inaccuracies, technical errors, which is very unfortunate. Of course, all this must be related, naturally, to human error,” Kobakhidze said.
The embassy stated that ‘no credible reasons were provided’ regarding the acceleration of the process and adoption of the amendments ‘without appropriate consultations.’
He once again emphasised that based on the legislative amendments, the authority of the State Inspector’s Service ‘have been broadly expanded.’
Kobakhidze also said that the ruling party is ‘always ready to talk about any topic’ with its partners.
The Georgian parliament adopted the law on the State Inspector’s Service on July 21, 2018, and the Service began operations on November 1, 2019. According to the bill, the State Inspector’s Service was assigned to conduct the investigations with the supervision of the Georgian Prosecutor's office.