In a new wave of evictions, internally displaced persons (IDPs) were forced to vacate four temporary shelters in Tbilisi on July 18, following previous rounds of evictions in August 2010 and January 2011. A majority of these IDPs were old caseload f

In an earlier blog post, we raised concerns about the systematic practice of 'ghost voting' within the Georgian Parliament. Our report quickly caught the media’s attention and prompted several TV reports and news articles, in one of which an MP who w

Throughout much of Eastern Europe, lustration laws have been enacted to strengthen national security and prevent ex-Soviet operatives and informants from holding public posts. The Georgian Parliament has recently followed the trend, drafting and pass

On June 13, 2011 ruling party MPs Pavle Kublashvili, Akaki Minashvili, Chiora Taktakishvili and Koka Anjaparidze initiated amendment to the law on assembly and manifestations . According to the explanatory note, the purpose of the amendments is to

The recent agreement between the ruling party and several opposition parties on election system changes includes, among other things, raising the number of MPs from the current 150 to 190. This would of course require constitutional changes which the

One of the basic principles of representative democracy is that legislators must cast their own votes. This ensures that they can be held accountable to their constituents during elections for their stance on new legislation. The Rules of Procedur

Update: 23.06.2011 In April Georgia became the 135th country to officially adhere to the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (PD) and the Accra Agenda for Action (AAA), initiatives launched in 2005 and 2008 to address some of the burning cr

In February 2011, Prime Minister Nika Gilauri suggested the formation of a joint stock company (JSC) 'Partnership Fund', with the aim to develop cooperation between the public and private sector to finish stalled investment projects, create employmen

Numerous proposals to reform the electoral system in Georgia are circulating. The final structure of that reform will be a key part of this emerging Democracy's future success. We firmly believe that citizens should understand the details of this deb

Several months ago, we published a blog post criticizing the Civil Service Bureau’s (CSB) income declarations website, http://declaration.ge , for not making its data available in a usable format. Although the CSB responded to some of our criticisms,