Tbilisi. Human Rights Education and Monitoring Center (EMC) publishes an article of Tornike Gerliani – “Reform of the electoral system: Bill of the opposition and the issue of its compliance with the Constitution”.

The article is about a report that has been released by the OSCE/ODIHR in response to the address of the Public Defender of Georgia and relates to an electoral reform proposed by the opposition (so-called German model). “The report of ODIHR states at the beginning that “the final decision on compliance of law with the constitution must be taken by local courts. This opinion reviews proposed changes and analyzes them with respect to relevant international obligations and standards ...” Besides, as ODIHR indicates, “all proposed changes should be considered attentively and adopted on the basis of a broad consensus among political parties.” The report contains a review of compliance of the bill with democratic approaches and principles, recognized internationally. In this part ODIHR indicates that “the presented package does not propose those changes to election regulations, which would have an impact on the issue of compliance with principles of a universal, free, secret and direct voting right.”

Thus, the report does not touch upon the issue of constitutionality of the proposed bill, however, it indicates its compliance with internationally recognized principles,” – is stated in the article, - “despite the fact that the report of ODIHR does not appraise the issue of constitutionality of the bill, it is important to evaluate this subject theoretically so as not to marginalize the idea, which may facilitate to conduct 2020 Parliamentary Elections within the framework of a fair electoral system based on a broad consensus of the society”.

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Source: emc.org.ge