Parliament official: decision on forwarding deoligarchisation bill to Venice Commission yet to be made
Okhanashvili said lawmakers were awaiting comments by the Commission on the Ukrainian bill on the deoligarchisation, which was used as the basis for the Georgian version, before making a decision on forwarding their own draft to the body. Photo: Parliament of Georgia
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Anri Okhanashvili, the chair of the Georgian parliament's legal affairs committee, on Monday said the lawmaking body had not yet made a decision on whether the bill on deoligarchisation would be forwarded for comments to the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission.
Okhanashvili said lawmakers were awaiting comments by the Commission on the Ukrainian bill on the deoligarchisation, which was used as the basis for the Georgian version, before making a decision on forwarding their own draft to the body.
We are having consultations with our [European] partners, we have communicated with the Venice Commission, we have a lot of information, including the bill sent by Ukraine to the Venice Commission. We will make a decision and let you know. There is no categorical position on whether to send or not the bill to the Venice Commission”, the parliament official said.
“The Venice Commission is working on the Ukrainian bill [and] preparing an opinion, this is official information. We are having consultations with the European Union and we will inform you later what decision we will make”, he added.
The committee chair also said the European Parliament “takes decisions from a political point of view and the Venice Commission is a professional body that creates a legal framework”, in notes about the European bodies’ role in considering national bills.
Okhanashvili on Thursday said the ruling team was holding consultations with European bodies to make sure there were “no ambiguities” around the domestic deoligarchisation bill.
Controversy over the bill stems from a section of the domestic opposition saying it “must include” Bidzina Ivanishvili, the founder of the ruling party and former prime minister, as a “shadow ruler” of the country, while authors of the bill have pointed to criteria for defining oligarchs as outlined in the document and said mentioning specific names in the bill would be “very undemocratic”.
While in Georgia earlier this month, Oliver Varhelyi, the EU commissioner for neighbourhood and enlargement, said that legal amendments requested by the bloc “do not apply to specific individuals”.