On October 4, Transparency International Georgia presented the Open Parliament 2015-2016 Action Plan First Monitoring Report in the framework of the project “Monitoring and Promoting Understanding of Georgia’s Open Parliament Action Plan”.

The Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multilateral initiative launched in 2011 to provide an international platform for domestic reformers committed to making their governments more open, accountable, and responsive to citizens.

The OGP initiative was initially intended to strengthen the openness, accountability and responsiveness of the executive branches of participating government, but since 2014 the OGP platform began to spill over to legislative branches. In 2015, Georgia became the first country to draft and approve the Open Parliament Action Plan, as well as sign up to the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness.

The Open Parliament Georgia Action Plan consists of 18 commitments, which aim at increasing public involvement in parliamentary activities, strengthening the access to information and the accountability of the Parliament of Georgia.

15 out of the 18 commitments in the OP Action Plan were proposed by the civil society organizations that are members of the Consultative Group. The remaining three commitments were proposed by the Georgian Parliament’s office and an individual MP.

While the Parliament and the civil society members have actively collaborated in drafting the Action Plan, the implementation phase of the OP Action Plan has largely failed to meet expectations, with only four completely fulfilled commitment as of September 2016. This has happened despite the fact that the Permanent Council had the absolute majority of necessary draft amendments prepared by May 2016.