Judges of the Georgian common courts and the staff of the Anti-corruption Bureau participated in the Bench-Bar workshop “Strengthening political finance oversight: challenges and steps forward”. The workshop provided an opportunity to exchange on practical steps on how to improve the oversight of political finance and find common approaches for detecting and responding to campaign finance violations.

Tamta Kachkachishvili, Deputy Head of the Anti-corruption Bureau, Svetislav Paunovic, Deputy Head of the Council of Europe Office in Georgia and Franck Daeschler, Elections Programme Co-ordinator at the Secretariat of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, stressed in their opening remarks the increasing importance of effective monitoring of legality of political finance in particular in view of the upcoming 26 October Parliamentary Elections. 

They recalled that the Venice Commission and the OSCE/ODIHR, in their joint opinion of December 2022 reiterated necessity to continue “…concerted efforts to strengthen the institutional framework and capacity to identify and conduct investigations into campaign finance-related offences and bring violators to account,” and  to establish  “an effective, impartial and timely mechanism to address complaints on such offences”.

Participants also discussed topics related to standards of evidence in administrative offense cases, means of obtaining them and evaluation criteria; the role of the court at the stage of obtaining and evaluating evidence; obtaining of explanation from a physical person; interrogation procedures in a presence of a magistrate judge. Discussions also focused on the latest amendments to the domestic legislation on political finance and the importance of Council of Europe standards and instruments aimed at enhancing the oversight of political finance.

The workshop provided a beneficial platform for electoral stakeholders to discuss and agree on common practices necessary for ensuring effective legal remedies for all concerned.

The Bench-Bar workshop was organised within the framework of the Council of Europe Project “Supporting Transparency, Inclusiveness and Integrity of Electoral Practice and Process in Georgia”.