Parliament Committee Chair says legislative activity of sovereign country “not subject to sanctions”

Irakli Kadagishvili, the Chair of the Georgian Parliament’s Committee on Procedural Issues and Rules, on Tuesday said legislative activity of a sovereign country was “not subject to any sanctions by any international standards”.

Kadagishvili was commenting on the controversial domestic law on transparency of foreign influence, after the United States last week announced a new visa restriction policy for “those responsible for undermining democracy” in Georgia, including in connection with the law on transparency of foreign influence, adopted by the ruling Georgian Dream party, as well as a comprehensive review of the cooperation between the two countries.

The Georgian lawmaker said the law was “not directed [...] against the strategic relationship between Georgia and the United States”.

“Today, we will have to override the [President’s] veto on the transparency law, [...] Yesterday, all of us witnessed the situation [at a sitting of the Legal Affairs Committee] where the author of the veto had no legal argument, not even a legal note, as to why the transparency law is bad”, he alleged.

We have seen that there is no legal argument, but there is a lot of speculation about it. In other words, they can talk about everything that a person can think of, but not about the fact that transparency is one of the most important requirements of democracy, including of Europe”, the Committee Chair added.

The Georgian Parliament on Tuesday started discussions of the veto on the law at a plenary session, on the backdrop of ongoing public protests.

The law requires registration of non-commercial legal entities and media outlets in the country as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” if they derive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad.

Its adoption by the Parliament has been followed by public protests and criticism from Georgia’s foreign partner states.

Zourabichvili last week vetoed the law, but the ruling party has enough votes in the Parliament to override the veto.