Parliament adopts legislative amendments related to banning of political parties in second reading

The Parliament has adopted a package of legislative amendments related to the ban on political parties in the second reading.

MPs unanimously supported the planned amendments to the laws “On Political Unions of Citizens” and “On the Constitutional Court” by 79 votes.

The draft law was edited during the second reading. The amendment concerned the deadlines for making a decision on the banning of the so-called successor party of a party already banned by the Constitutional Court.

More specifically, according to the draft, the Constitutional Court will be able to ban a party, the declared purpose, essence of activity and personnel composition of which repeat the declared purpose, essence of activity and personnel composition of a party already banned by the court. In addition, according to the draft initiated in the Parliament and adopted in the first hearing, the term for issuing a decision on a lawsuit related to the constitutionality of a party should not exceed 9 months from the filing of the lawsuit, and during the election period - 14 days.

According to today's decision, this term will be set at only 14 days for both the election and non-election periods.

“This is a logical deadline. Considering that the Constitutional Court will have already ruled on the constitutionality of the so-called parent - the main party, and we must assume that there is an appropriate decision, based on this, the identity of the essence of the activities and personal composition of the so-called successor party will have to be established, which will not take much time,” said Tornike Cheishvili, a member of Georgian Dream, when presenting the issue during the second hearing.