The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty, published today a letter sent to the Chairman of the Parliament of Georgia in which he asks members of the Parliament to refrain from adopting the draft law “On protecting family values and minors” passed in second reading on 4 September 2024. He also calls on members of Parliament to engage with national and international partners to protect the human rights of LGBTI people and combat discrimination against them and to refrain from using rhetoric that stigmatises LGBTI people.
The Commissioner stresses that the draft law provides a legal footing for discrimination against LGBTI people and appears to be at variance with the European Convention on Human Rights.
Furthermore, he expresses concerns about prejudice against LGBTI people in segments of Georgian society, including among some politicians, and that the draft law perpetuates the stigma and discrimination faced by LGBTI people by listing sexual orientation and gender identity alongside incest.
Finally, he recalls that the content of the draft law is similar to the draft constitutional law “On protecting family values and minors,” registered in the Parliament on 3 April 2024, on which the European Commission for Democracy Through Law concluded that “the mere proposal of adopting this text risks to (further) fuel a hostile and stigmatising atmosphere against LGBTI people in Georgia.”
“According to the well-established caselaw of the European Court of Human Rights, a democratic society rejects any stigmatisation based on sexual orientation”, said the Commissioner. “Such a society is built on the equal dignity of individuals and is sustained by diversity, which it perceives not as a threat but as a source of enrichment”.
