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Politics

Venice Commission finds Georgia’s grants and party laws block an opposition from surviving

Europe’s constitutional-law body, the Venice Commission, has published its opinion on the amendments Georgia’s parliament adopted in March to the Law on Grants, the organic law on political associations and the criminal code, Interpressnews reported on 13 October. The legislation imposes disproportionate and unnecessary restrictions on freedom of association and expression, the commission found, “preventing the formation and survival of a political opposition”.

By CAW Staff14 October 2026
Three slate-blue law volumes stacked on a wooden table with a brass weight on top in raking amber light.

The commission takes the strong view, in Interpressnews’s rendering of the opinion, that the legislation does not pursue its stated aim of protecting Georgia’s sovereignty and its political parties from foreign influence. Criminal sanctions for breaches of the procedures and obligations of the Law on Grants should be reconsidered, it says, and so should criminal liability for acts defined through broad concepts such as “political matters related to Georgia”, the activities of foreign legal entities, or transactions characterised as circumventing the grant regime. Such acts should be regulated by administrative means with procedural safeguards, and if the authorities keep criminal sanctions they must confine them to cases that are strictly necessary and proportionate, with both the conduct and the sanction precisely defined. “These concepts need to be clarified and narrowly defined.”

“The regulatory framework lacks legal certainty and foreseeability,” the opinion says. “Key concepts such as the notions of ‘grant’, activities ‘relating to political matters’, ‘organisation representing the interests of a foreign power’ and a ‘person with a declared party-political aim’, ‘establishing a perception of illegitimacy’ or ‘harming the interests of the state’, are formulated in overly broad and imprecise terms, creating uncertainty as to the persons subject to the restrictions and conferring excessive discretion on the authorities.”

“These concepts need to be clarified and narrowly defined.”

The commission also asks that future law-making in Georgia take an inclusive approach, with expedited procedures the exception and all relevant actors able to express their opinions.

The organic law on political associations is the basis of the suit to ban the opposition parties that Georgian Dream filed with the Constitutional Court on 24 September and that the court passed to its full bench on 6 October. On 13 October two opposition leaders, Irakli Kupradze of the Lelo-Strong Georgia coalition and Berdia Sichinava of Gakharia for Georgia, told Interpressnews that the court had scheduled hearings for 21, 22 and 23 October, dates that come from their account of the court’s notices.

The 15 days the court gave itself on 6 October run to 21 October, the first of the three dates.

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