The Venice Commission called on Georgian authorities to relinquish the personalized approach to fight against oligarchic influences - a special law. According to the Venice Commission, it is a paradox to demand the enforcement of the law of "de-oligarchization" from institutions in which oligarchic influences seem to have taken root.
According to the opinion of the Venice Commission, due to the complexity of the scourge of "oligarchization", it is necessary for each state to determine the methods of combating oligarchic influences by understanding its historical, legal, and political context.
In these circumstances, instead of adopting a special law to combat "oligarchization", the Venice Commission called on Georgian authorities to implement appropriate reforms to enforce the current legislation and ensure the independence and efficiency of democratic institutions. In this regard, the Venice Commission paid particular attention to the justice sector. According to the Venice Commission, reforms should be systemic, comprehensive, and relentless.
It should be noted that, in this regard, the Venice Commission took into account the position of civil society organizations regarding the implementation of 12 priorities. In our opinion, the proper implementation of the rest of the priorities would, by itself, solve the problem of “Deoligarchization”, since there is no room for vested oligarchic interests where strength and real independence of state institutions are guaranteed.
This opinion of the Commission significantly increased the need of reforming state institutions in the field of their real independence, efficiency, coordination, and accountability.
Despite the critical opinion by the Commission, the Parliament of Georgia adopted the law “On Deoligarchization” by second reading. It is important to mention that the ruling party’s argument about the collision between the Commission’s opinion and the requirements of the European Union is far from being true. This was once again proven by the statement of the European Union in Georgia. Therefore, disregarding of the opinion and adoption of the law in its current form will have a negative impact on Georgia’s European integration.
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