On July 3, the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) published the Second Addendum to the Second Compliance Report on Georgia, addressing Georgia’s implementation of recommendations for corruption prevention in respect of members of parliament, judges, and prosecutors.
The Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) is a Council of Europe body that aims to improve the capacity of its members to fight corruption by monitoring their compliance with anti-corruption standards. GRECO helps states to identify deficiencies in national anti-corruption policies, prompting the necessary legislative, institutional and practical reforms.
The report finds that out of the 16 recommendations previously issued to Georgia by GRECO in 2016, nine have been implemented satisfactorily, six have been partly implemented, and one has not been implemented at all.
When it comes to the prevention of corruption among MPs (recommendation i), GRECO notes that substantial steps have been taken to “enhance the transparency of the legislative process.” However, the report points out that there is still no “statutory obligation on Parliament to proactively consult stakeholders on certain pieces of legislation initiated by the Government or Parliament,” concluding that the recommendation still remains to be fully implemented.
GRECO previously called on Georgia to adopt an enforceable, publicly accessible, and implementable code of conduct addressing conflicts of interest among MPs (recommendation ii). “The adoption of a Code of Conduct for parliamentarians in 2019,” the report notes, “had been fully addressed.” However, it also points out some pressing concerns about the implementability of the Code of Conduct (adopted in 2019) through the Parliament’s Council of Ethics, which has yet to become operational. It further finds that the statutory requirements for MPs to disclose any entrepreneurial activities as outlined in the Code of Conduct (recommendation iii) are “too narrow” and that “no progress had been made to oblige parliamentarians to disclose ad hoc conflicts of interest.” Concerning the judiciary, GRECO previously recommended that Georgia reform the procedures for the recruitment and promotion of judges to ensure that the decisions made by the High Council of Judges (HCJ) – the body responsible for evaluating judge promotions – are made on the basis of “clear and objective, pre-established criteria” (recommendation iv). The 2023 Organic Law on Common Courts of Georgia addressed GRECO’s recommendations concerning the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court. However, more efforts are required “to show that this practice would apply to the recruitment and promotion of all judges (other than those appointed to the Supreme Court).” GRECO particularly points out that “the procedure of promotion of a judge of a district (city) court to a court of appeals without competition, is not governed by clear and objective criteria, thus not in line with the principles of transparency and meritocracy (decisions are taken by secret ballot and no disclosure of the assessment by HCJ members is made public).”
Recommendation viii – which also remains partially fulfilled – further lays out the need to “increase the effectiveness, transparency and objectivity of disciplinary proceedings against judges.” Here, GRECO points out that there is still a lack of “a possibility of review of HCJ decisions terminating disciplinary proceedings.”
Additionally, GRECO finds that while the Rules of Judicial Ethics has been updated, communicated to all judges, and made easily accessible to the public (recommendation vii), it remains to be “complemented with practical measures for the implementation of the Rules.” While steps have been taken to enforce the Rules by running courses for judges on judicial ethics and conducting working groups, additional measures must be taken to practically implement GRECO’s recommendation.
GRECO notes that recommendation ix, which calls on the immunity of judges to be “limited to activities relating to their participation in judicial decision-making,” has not been implemented.
Lastly, GRECO welcomes the 2023 amendments to the Law on Combatting Corruption, which widened the definition of “public official” subject to the declaration regime, ultimately including all prosecutors. As such, it concludes that recommendation xiv, which seeks to widen “the scope of application of the asset declaration regime under the Law on Conflict of Interest and Corruption to cover all prosecutors,” has been fully implemented.
“The adoption of this Second Addendum to the Second Compliance Report terminates the Fourth-Round compliance procedure in respect of Georgia. The authorities of Georgia may, however, wish to inform GRECO of further developments regarding the implementation of the outstanding recommendations i-iv and vii-ix,” the report concludes.
With this report, GRECO closes the 4th monitoring round for Georgia. However, Georgia continues to be monitored under the 5th thematic monitoring round which focuses on preventing corruption and promoting integrity in central governments and law enforcement agencies. The evaluation report providing recommendations to the Georgian authorities will is expected to be published shortly in July.
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Source: Geostat