As a result of the enforcement of the new parliamentary regulations, several parliamentary instruments will be abolished

As a result of the enforcement of the new parliamentary regulations, several parliamentary instruments will be abolished. The "Minister's Hour," in which government members would report on their work before Parliament once a year and answer questions from deputies, will be discontinued.

According to the parliamentary majority's assessment, practice has shown that the "Minister's Hour" was an ineffective mechanism for parliamentary control. They also clarified that in place of the "Minister's Hour," the new regulations will increase the frequency of interpellations, allowing members of Parliament to ask any government member or other accountable individuals questions during weekly plenary sessions.

The changes will also affect the Parliament's advisory bodies—permanent parliamentary councils for open governance, child rights protection, and gender equality will be abolished. As noted in the explanatory note attached to the draft regulation, although the permanent parliamentary councils functioned in a consultative format, they performed the functions of committees, which was not in line with their legal status.

According to the Parliament's Speaker Shalva Papuashvili, instead of the permanent councils, new regulations have refined the norms for the operation of Parliament's "other temporary commissions," and the new definitions of the norms related to temporary commissions will allow important public issues to be studied using this instrument.

After the enforcement of the new regulations, the institution of thematic investigations in Parliament will be abolished—according to the draft regulations, the mechanism for thematic investigations in Parliament will no longer exist.

Additionally, committees will no longer be required to work on action plans, which had been their annual obligation, including drafting, preparing, and publishing them on Parliament's website.

Also, under the previous version of the regulations, committees were required to appoint a thematic reporter for a draft law; however, under the new version, this obligation will be abolished. The appointment of a thematic reporter will depend on the committee's decision.

The new regulations are expected to come into effect on July 1, 2025. Upon enforcement of the new regulations, the current 2018 regulations will be declared null and void.

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