Georgian Dream initiates new legislation to regulate the issuing of grants by foreign donors

The ruling Georgian Dream party has begun to consider an amendment to the Law on Grants, which would include a new article regulating the procedure for issuing grants by foreign donors. The parliament is also considering amendments to the Political Union of Citizens law, the Law on Corruption, and the Code of Administrative Procedure.

According to the draft law, an organisation will not be able to receive a grant unless it has ‘the consent of the government or an authorised person/body designated by the government’. The donor organisation will be required to submit a draft agreement of the grant to the government before its approval.

‘The decision on granting the said consent shall be made within 10 days and the appeal of this decision shall not suspend its validity. Acceptance of a grant issued without the said consent is prohibited’, the text of the draft amendments read.

The draft amendments also establish exceptions — in particular, the rule of mandatory government consent does not apply to grants issued by international sports associations, federations, and committees; individual scholarships issued for secondary and higher education and scientific work outside the borders of Georgia; as well as to grants received by international organisations operating in Georgia.

The Georgian Anti–Corruption Bureau will monitor the issuance and receipt of ‘prohibited grants’.

The Anti-Corruption Bureau will have the authority to request financial statements, to question an individual in the bureau or before a magistrate judge, and to request necessary information, including special categories of personal data, classified personal data, and information containing secrets.

‘If there is a reasonable suspicion of a violation of the requirements established by this law, state bodies shall provide information about this to the Anti-Corruption Bureau’, the draft amendments read.

If there are circumstances that may impede the execution of the penalty provided for by law for an administrative offense, the Anti-Corruption Bureau shall be authorised, after drawing up an administrative offense report, to seize the property of the offender, including bank accounts, in proportion to the sanction provided for the relevant offense.

The seizure will take effect immediately and will be submitted to the court for confirmation together with the administrative offense report.

The offender may be held liable within six years from the date of the commission of the relevant action.

Receiving a prohibited grant will result in the grantee being fined double the amount of the grant in question.

Providing false information by the individual during questioning by the Anti-Corruption Bureau or during questioning by the individual before a magistrate judge upon the request of the Anti-Corruption Bureau will result in a fine of ₾2,000 ($700).

Local media has reported the draft amendments will be considered in an expedited manner, which makes its adoption possible within a week. The amendments will enter into force immediately upon publication.

In addition to the above, with the amendments to the Political Unions of Citizens Law, ‘a political party and a person with a declared electoral goal will no longer be able to accept donations from a legal entity registered in Georgia or outside Georgia and/or other types of associations of persons for the organisation of a lecture, seminar, or other similar public event’.

According to the explanatory note, both international and local organisations, as well as foreign citizens, will be barred from holding events for political parties and individuals with electoral goals.

Parliamentary Speaker Shalva Papuashvili stated that ‘this will be a consent not to receive a grant, but to issue a grant. If a donor wants to issue a grant, they must apply to the government or a subject designated by the government and obtain consent to issue a grant’.

‘Unfortunately, there are many irresponsible donors, with whom we have been talking for months, years about how they should behave responsibly’, he said.

‘We see that they give money, and then with this money they [referring to those receiving grants] do things like advertise the “Molotov cocktail”, carry out fascist campaigns, and commit violent acts’.

‘When we ask donors about this, they wash their hands of it, as if it is not their responsibility. It will not work out that way and cannot be. They are spending the money of the people of their country and should behave responsibly. They harm the interests of our society when they finance advertising Molotov cocktails, etc’.

‘You will have to swallow the oppression’

Civil rights lawyer Saba Brachveli wrote on Facebook on Tuesday that the amendments to the Law on Grants would prohibit the Georgian people from receiving free aid.

According to Brachveli, the ruling party will now block funding from all organisations that ‘work on human rights, corruption, or other goods, and force the closure of all media outlets that dare to cover corruption like poisoned milk’.

‘After this change, if you have a land dispute, want to clarify the rules for legalising land, your employer will kick you out of the job, or the police will oppress you — instead of receiving free services, you will either have to hire a private lawyer and spend a lot of money, or you will have to swallow the oppression’, he wrote.

‘And this will not only be in the legal sphere — total censorship will be established everywhere where grants are issued’.

Giorgi Kldiashvili, Executive Director of the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI), stated that the ‘most vulnerable groups’ will suffer from the restriction or cancellation of grants.

‘Grants apply to absolutely all areas. Therefore, these will be various vulnerable groups, whether it will be, for example, assistance to women, people with disabilities or other groups that are very vulnerable in today’s reality by this illegitimate regime, which is directly supported by Russia’, he said.

‘Grants are very large revenues to the economy, this is a very large investment in the economy, all of this will stop, because no normal state will cooperate with this regime in Georgia’.

The majority of Georgian civil society and media organisations implement projects with grants received from abroad. To restrict them, the ruling party, together with its parliamentary satellites, adopted a number of laws — including the foreign agent law and the recently adopted ‘Georgian version of the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)’, also adopted restrictive amendments to the Broadcasting Law. Additionally, it restricted broadcasters from broadcasting projects funded from abroad.