The Council of Europe Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO) in its fourth report assessing the implementation by Georgia of its 2016 recommendations welcomes the statutory amendments that have introduced the obligation on all prosecutors to submit declarations of assets, a novelty since its latest report published two years ago, and decides to conclude the monitoring of Georgia on preventing corruption among parliamentarians, judges and prosecutors (see French and Georgian version of the report).

All in all, GRECO concludes that Georgia has implemented satisfactorily or dealt with in a satisfactory manner nine of its 16 recommendations provided back in 2016. Of the remaining recommendations six remain partly implemented and one, that on limiting the immunity of judges to “functional immunity”, has not been implemented.

With respect to members of Parliament, the authorities have taken measures to enhance transparency of the Parliament’s work, by updating Parliament's website and parliamentary committees’ webpages, publishing protocol and audio records of meetings of parliamentary committees and making available recordings of plenary and committed meetings on social media. However, there has been no progress in respect of a few matters. No regulatory framework has been established for conducting effective and meaningful public consultation during the legislative drafting process, no developments have been made regarding the provision of confidential counselling and the operation of the Council of Ethics to monitor the parliamentarians’ Code of Conduct, and there is no obligation on parliamentarians to disclose ad hoc conflicts of interest. GRECO urges the authorities to implement the outstanding recommendations in order to strengthen the system of integrity of members of parliament.

As far as judges are concerned, GRECO notes the positive developments regarding the process and procedure for the appointment of judicial candidates to vacant positions of judges of district (city) courts or courts of appeals for a period of three years or for life, as well as the process of selection of Supreme Court judges. However, serious efforts should be made to bring the process of promotion of judges to courts of appeals in line with GRECO’s recommendation for transparency, objectivity and meritocracy. The authorities are also urged to limit judges’ immunity to what is strictly necessary for carrying out the functions of a judge, i.e. to functional immunity.

Regarding prosecutors, GRECO welcomes that all recommendations have been implemented, noting, in particular, that all prosecutors have been made subject to the disclosure requirements of assets, interests and liabilities under domestic law.  

While GRECO decides to terminate this monitoring round in respect of Georgia, the authorities may, however, wish to inform GRECO of further developments regarding the implementation of the outstanding recommendations.

GRECO and Georgia