On December 18th, 2015, the Parliament of Georgia has adopted the amendments to the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament of Georgia on the third hearing, which considers establishment of the Permanent Parliamentary Council on Open and Transparent Governance. Particularly, according to the amendment (Article 107 (23) (the number correlates with the Georgian alphabet)) the Chairperson of the Parliament of Georgia is obliged to create above-mentioned Parliamentary Council in order to ensure transparency of the legislative activities, and coordinative and effective management of the issues related to openness of the Parliament.
Obligation to establish the Permanent Parliamentary Council on Open and Transparent Governance was considered by the Open Parliament Georgia Action Plan 2015-2016, which was elaborated by the Inter-Factional Group of the Parliament of Georgia and the Open Parliament Working Group. The Action Plan was adopted by the Bureau of the Parliament of Georgia on July 17th, 2015.
Having amended the Rules of Procedure, the Parliament of Georgia has launched carrying out the commitments of the Action Plan. The MP and the Head of the Inter-Factional Group – Tamar Kordzaia was initiator of making changes to the Rules of Procedure.
Provision and composition of the Permanent Parliamentary Council on Open and Transparent Governance is regulated by the order of the Chairperson of the Parliament (Rules of procedure of the Parliament of Georgia, Article 2831. According to the changes to the Rules of Procedure, the Chairperson of the Parliament is considered as a member of the Council due to the position and is supposed to administer or commend administering the Council to one of the MPs.
According to the Open Parliament Georgia Action Plan 2015-2016, consultative board comprising the civil society organizations will also be formed and tasked to support work of the Permanent Parliamentary Council on Open and Transparent Governance.
Institutionalized model of the Parliamentary Council exists in the Chilean Bicameral Committee for Transparency and in Mexican Senate’s Committee on the Assurance of Access and Transparency of Information (COGATI).
The composition of the Permanent Parliamentary Council on Open and Transparent Governance will be determined from January 2016 and a working group will also be established to carry out the commitments laid out in the Open Parliament Georgia Action Plan 2015-2016.
It should be noted that the initiative of establishing Permanent Parliamentary Council belongs to the Institute of Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI). IDFI has been supporting the work of the Inter-Factional Group and the Open Parliament Working Group within the scopes of the program “Supporting Involvement of the Parliament of Georgia in Open Government Partnership” which is funded by the UNDP and the EU and is implemented with cooperation of the Parliament of Georgia. Within the framework of the project, Open Parliament Georgia Action Plan 2015-2016 was elaborated and adopted.
The Action Plan consists of 18 commitments, among them is a commitment on establishing the Permanent Parliamentary Council on Open and Transparent Governance. The Council should be based on the principle of inter-factionalism and will ensure implementation of the Action Plan and monitoring of the process of its implementation.
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