Council of Europe’s (CoE) advisory body for legal affairs, Venice Commission, is expected to adopt its opinion on the planned constitutional reform in Georgia at its session on September 15-16.
It will be followed with a visit of Venice Commission delegation to Georgia on September 16-17 to discuss recommendations with the Georgian authorities.
The Commission, which has been requested by the Georgian authorities to provide its expertise to the draft amendments to the constitution, released its preliminary opinion on the proposed draft in late July.
Although it noted that the proposed draft “provide for several important improvements and significant steps in the good direction”, the Commission also said that “certain amendments” should be made to the draft before its adoption.
The Parliament is expected to start discussion of the draft in September and as Parliamentary Chairman, Davit Bakradze, said it would probably be passed either in late October or early November.
The preliminary opinion by the Venice Commission said that the proposed new constitutional model “paves the way for the shift towards a less presidential system”, where the President’s role “is supposed to be that of a neutral arbitrator between the state institutions”.
“[The new model] aims to move from a rather presidential system of government to a mixed system where the executive power is in the hands of the government, which is accountable to the parliament” and no more before the President, the Commission said.
But it also said that although the government’s powers would be increased, the President still “retains important powers”, including in the field of the international relations, the armed forces and the situations of emergency, as well as in case of situation when government faces vote of no confidence.
Civil Georgia
