New Stage of Parliamentary Development in Georgia

According to the new rules of procedure, the oversight functions of the Parliament of Georgia are increasing. The amendments will be put into effect after the October elections, as soon as the president of Georgia concludes his oath. The model of the parliamentary republic, envisaged by the new edition of the Constitution of Georgia requires the existence of a strong Parliament. The active rule contradicts the law; therefore it is necessary to bring it in line with the constitution. For this purpose, the rules of procedure of the parliament were implemented.

With the support of the European Union and UNDP, international and local experts have prepared several recommendations and reports. We interviewed Tamar Chugoshvili and she shared the following insights with us about the most obvious necessity, which is inevitable for a strong parliament to exist in Georgia, where parties, will dispute recommendations and will exhibit parliamentary control over the country.

The parliament, as a legislative body and a direct representative of the population, has several functions - creation of laws; communication with the voter and quite significant is the control of the government and all the bodies which are accountable to the parliament. If something is not done well in the country and the population is unsatisfied, to some extent, it is responsibility of the parliament. Parliament should be monitoring in different forms. For instance: meet the ministers; form investigative commissions; other type of commissions; plan government hours and always have the government operating a good arrangement. All European, democratic countries live this way- the government is always in the parliament. In some places, it happens once a week, in some other places once in a month, but there are very intensive contacts between the government and the parliament. Parliament questions the government every week and every month for the report of their work during that period. There is no such kind of culture in Georgia, because traditionally, in Georgia we have only had very strong governments and a weak parliament, whose only notary function is to sign the legislations drafted by the government. Nowadays parliament is tasked to change such kinds of attitude – firstly, what changes everything is recorded in the constitution, where the role between the parliament and the government should be distributed in such ways that the parliament would have authority to control the government and not the case where if parliament does not like any proposed plan by the government, the government just go away. We have already changed these records and the role of the parliament is now very strengthened. As soon as the newly elected president hits the ground running, these changes will take effect and will be fully implemented. Accordingly, this is one big step in the constitution.

Also, it is a very important change that has been made towards standing orders (parliamentary rules) on which we have worked for more than a year. As expected by Autumn, we will put these changes into force. Based on the practice we had before, the parliament had only performed monitory functions in a very superficial manner. The maximum was that the minister appeared at the committee meeting and during the last period, we were able to activate this issue. This year, we have asked lots of ministers to come before the parliament - it was more than the visits recorded during previous parliaments. As you have been informed, we have created an investigative commission and we took the decision to give it to the opposition, which is one of the mechanisms that lend credence to cases handled by the commission. We hope that the move will make the society highly interested in cases that will be investigated by the commission as the opposition is mainly charge of it. This is the first time since our independence that such arrangement will exist in an investigative commission and it shows some signs that the parliament is gaining strength in its function. But the major change will be made after getting the new constitution into force alongside the new standing orders. The power of the parliament and the way to use this power will be much more defined by the new legislation.

You spoke about the issue of the prime minister visiting the parliament, which has been consistently discussed from the side of opposition. What are your thoughts about this? What do you think should be the intensity of appointing discussions/ meetings with the prime minister?

Prior to this time, the Prime Minister was always visiting but only in one case – when the parliament had to express its trust towards him. It didn’t serve any purpose and is considered by most to be an anomalous function, as the Prime Minister should be visiting the parliament more often. We have some possibilities based on which the parliament can bring the Prime Minister in as a legislative body. One and the most important point would be when the Prime Minister is presenting the yearly report. This will be held in June, and in the last week of this month which is always very busy politically as the prime minister will also present the yearly report before the parliament. Besides, parliament will be able to use new procedure, which we did not have before – interpellation – in case faction or 7 deputies send questions to the Prime Minister, he will be obliged to visit and to personally answer to those questions in the boardroom.

We have assigned time twice during each session, in fact; this change makes it possible to have the Prime Minister’s speech in front of the parliament approximately 5 times and besides, Parliament can bring him more frequently. Parliament has many more mechanisms to control the government and the Prime Minister.

One of the recommendations from international experts is about the issue of bringing ministers to the parliament for meeting by factions; he wants us to abolish this rule…

This is a very important recommendation about which we have had a very big dispute sometimes back. Our parliament has one anomalous rule, which was created years ago by the former government, and it says that we should meet ministers in factions, political party basis and not in committees. None of the parliaments around the world has this. There has never been a scenario where a minister would come to the party. Everywhere minister goes before the committee, where all parties are represented and where the issue is very specific. This is the right form and practice. We got the go ahead for meeting minister in factions, but we do not treat any issues, we only curse each other and create political disputes in very rude and bad manners.

We were advised to desist from this because this does not work in any parliament, and it didn’t work with us. This practice harms the reputation of the parliament. Instead we said that convening of ministers in parliament should be easies, there should be 3-4 deputies and not only the majority should have the right to convene ministers to the parliament. It is common interest for us to have the ministers appear before the Parliament as often as possible, but we have abolished the right to meet them in factions.

British expert Sir Paul Silk has rised the issue of transferring the parliament’s location back to Tbilisi. What is your opinion about this? How strongly does the opinion that suggests the Parliament’s move to the capital resonate with you?

The fact that the parliament has two buildings makes the working process very hard and the parliament as an institution generally becomes weak by this action. When the whole parliament and the deputies are on the road for most parts of the time, this raises a very big difficulty, and is a very strong attack for the parliament. When we were discussing new standing orders almost everyone asked to transfer parliament where it was before in the capital. This issue will go down to votes in September and that is when the final decision about the issue will be known. I agree that the parliament is weak being in two cities.

What do you think is a very clearly outlined necessity, which you think will be major and pivotal to a strong parliament?

Many things simultaneously; firstly the monitory function of deputies should be used more actively. Nowadays they can ask written questions to any persons in charge of an office, and receive the written answers as soon as possible. They can summon any persons, and investigate any work done by any office. They can do lots of things. Unfortunately, the members of the parliament do not use their authority and it will be very important that at first, we take this law very serious when the members of the parliament start using this rule. Another very important issue is that in every good parliament which I have seen in the world has its Analytical Research Center which has its quality determined by the people working inside. This people over time have proven to be more qualified than parliament members’ and I think that inner reforms are also necessary to strengthen parliament from this angle.

What is your opinion about the opposition’s involvement; there have been some notices recently?

Parliament is not only about the majority. Whether we like each other or not, we are building parliament together. This is the task and reality set before us. I think that the relations between political parties were more aggressive then and now that we are trying to walk on a civil path, I see those signs. One of these examples is the direction of creating an investigative commission which shows the willingness of the majority to allow members of the opposition to investigate very important cases. When one party has constitutional majority and others are represented in the parliament by a low percentage, it’s natural that one party would be very strong, while others are weak. In this parliament, we have this function, but as time goes by this will also pass because we are already changing the voting system. Many things are changing in the country and the parliament will become colourful soon, the issue of domination by one party will be a thing of the past. Accordingly, the role of the opposition will rise, which is unavoidable.

Finally, how do you see a strong legislative body playing out in Georgia?

Parliament should be determining the policy in reality i.e. Parliament should say what and how things should take place in the country and should control the policies to ensure that they are effectively carried out. Parliament should be very close to the people. Much more communication is needed with the society and Parliament needs to be more powerful and strong, in relation with the government and should be creating more effective laws as it has done today. As a result, the faith in the society will increase. When the society’s trust towards the parliament is high, this will be an indicator that parliament is inclusive of them. The fact that the trust from the society is low is not by chance, it has its reasons and we should check that. I think that we will need 15 years which is effectively the twelfth parliament to have the qualitative parliament I imagine for my country today. How so? Is 15 years not a long time? For history this is a small time, but for us it is much. I think that this means quick progress. If after the eleventh, twelfth parliament, we have a standard parliament like we have in western European counties, then I think that this is fast development.