Blog Post

10 October 2017

Tbilisi City Assembly Parking Fines Point to Ineffectiveness of the Parking System

The number of fines issued on vehicles belonging to the Tbilisi City Council over the past 7 years shows that the existing parking system has failed to regulate parking even just outside the Council building.

4 July 2017

Public Holidays in Europe and Georgia

A draft law prepared by the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory proposes reducing the number of public holidays in Ukraine from 11 to 9. The draft law proposes altogether cancelling public celebration of May 1-2, substituting March 8 with March 9 (Shevchenko Day), May 9 with May 8 (day of memory and reconciliation), and the first Monday afterPentecost with the day of the family in September.

15 June 2017

Why are Sustainable Development Goals Important?

One of the frequent questions about the SDGs – why we need one more framework when there are international conventions, national level policies and strategies that address issues targeted in the 2030 Agenda.

17 March 2017

Russia’s Soft and Hard Power in Georgia

Russian Propaganda is still a prominent topic in Georgia as well as on the international scene. The eminence is all the more striking as Russian interference in US elections, which most probably had an influence on election results, was confirmed. European countries now fully understand the threats of Russian information operations and are trying to take appropriate measures against them.

28 February 2017

Georgia’s Chairmanship of OGP: Advancing the Global, Regional and National Open Government Agenda

n May 2016, Georgia was elected as a co-chair of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Steering Committee before taking over as a Lead Chair in 2017. The fact that 18 of the Steering Committee member countries supported Georgia was a clear expression of appreciation of Georgia’s achievements and reforms initiated and implemented as an OGP member as well as its future plans.

16 November 2016

Personal Data Protection as a Tool for Classifying Court Activities

According to existing legislation, the Georgian public may not know the arguments behind court decisions to convict the former President, former Minister of Internal Affairs, and former Minister of Defense. The answer to a simple question of why is also simple – “Personal data protection is an important challenge for the state; international acts and the EU Association Agreement obligate us to protect personal data”.

19 October 2016

Parliamentary Election Results - Challenges of Democratic Development in Georgia

Gaining constitutional majority would mean not only that the ruling party would have the ability to amend the country’s highest law on any issue single-handedly and without real consensus, but also that it would be under heavy responsibility to fulfill all of its pre-election promises at any cost.

19 September 2016

Politicization of Constitutional Justice: Altered Constitutional Claims and Motions to Recuse Constitutional Court Judges

Lately, a number of high-ranking political officials have made statements about constitutional claims having been altered, with some demanding a launch of investigation. The Georgian Parliament has requested the Constitutional Court to recuse several judges from two constitutional cases (so-called Cables-Ugulava and the Rustavi 2 cases), also citing possibly altered claims. In addition, lawyers of the Rustavi 2 case have appealed to the Constitutional Court to also recuse judges from their case because of their public statements. Considering the importance of the issue, IDFI decided to prepare a legal analysis of the situation based on information requested from the Constitutional Court.

26 December 2014