A bill titled the "Foreign Agents Registration Act" (FARA), which is a literal translation of the U.S. legislation, has been registered in Parliament - The bill includes terms such as "President of the United States," "Congress," "State Department," and "Secretary of the Treasury"

The "Foreign Agents Registration Act" – a bill with this title has been introduced in Parliament, which is a word-for-word translation of the FARA legislation in the United States.

At a session of the Parliamentary Bureau, the head of Parliament's Legal Department, Aleksandre Tabatadze, confirmed that the initiative is a Georgian-language translation of the U.S. legislative act and contains legal and substantive inaccuracies that will need to be clarified in the future.

"The state bodies and officials involved in the enforcement of the law, as outlined in the U.S. version, are not applicable to the Georgian reality. For example, the bill mentions ‘Congress,’ ‘Library of Congress,’ ‘State Department,’ ‘Department of Justice,’ ‘Secretary of the Treasury,’ ‘District General Director,’ ‘President of the United States,’ and so on. Amendments to relevant legislative acts will also be necessary.

Additionally, the bill includes only one amendment to the ‘Criminal Code,’ while amendments to other legislative acts are not attached. Moreover, we already have a similar legislative act in Georgia, and if the goal is to declare this existing act void, a corresponding bill should also be attached," stated Aleksandre Tabatadze.

In response to the Legal Department, the Chairman of the Legal Affairs Committee, Archil Gorduladze, clarified that the decision to introduce a verbatim translation of the American law was a political one, in order to avoid any claims of misinterpretation in the translation.

"This is an exact translation, and if anyone has any objections regarding the translation, here we are—present any changes or a better translation.

As for the executive bodies, we will need to define additional institutions responsible for enforcing the law in our context.

We translated everything as is—even the ‘President of the United States,’ references to states, and even department heads—so that there are no insinuations that the regulation is different. We are open to reasonable discussions and refinements—officials and institutions will be adjusted to fit the Georgian reality.

Our goal is to introduce a law with specific penalties and sanctions, in the same form and to the same extent as it applies in the United States," stated Archil Gorduladze.

The Speaker of Parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, also commented on the initiative during the Bureau session, stating that the introduced bill is a word-for-word translation of FARA, where "every word, every comma, and every period is identical to the law in force in the U.S."

"Any speculation that the Georgian Parliament will adopt a law that does not meet international standards will end with this," added Shalva Papuashvili.

The "Foreign Agents Registration Act" has been forwarded to the Parliamentary Legal Affairs Committee for further discussion.