Kavelashvili withdraws Zourabichvili’s constitutional lawsuit against Georgia’s foreign agent law

Georgian President Mikheil Kavelashvili has withdrawn the constitutional lawsuit filed by Georgia’s fifth president Salome Zourabichvili, who argued that the legislation was anti-European, and therefore unconstitutional.

Zourabichvili’s representatives originally submitted the suit to the court in July 2024, with the argument that the foreign agent law was in breach of Article 78 of Georgia’s Constitution, which obliges constitutional bodies to ‘take all measures within the scope of their competences to ensure the full integration of Georgia into the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation [NATO]’.

Shortly after, over 120 local civil society and media organisations also filed challenges to the law, in addition to seeking a temporary suspension of the law pending the Constitutional Court’s final ruling.

The hearings in the case began on 29 August after all the lawsuits were combined into one proceeding.

In October, the Constitutional Court of Georgia declined the motion to suspend the foreign agent law pending a final ruling on its constitutionality. The case has remained pending since then.

According to Monday’s press release from Kavelashvili’s office, the legislation in question ‘is based on transparency and accountability, which contributes to the protection of the most important principle of Georgian statehood — the national sovereignty of the state and the stable development of the country’.

‘The law serves to inform the public as much as possible about the sources of funding for organisations that promote the interests of foreign powers’, the press release read, according to which, Kavelashvili decided to dismiss the constitutional lawsuit.

The controversial foreign agent law labels any civil society or media organisation that receives at least 20% of its funding from abroad ‘organisations carrying out the interests of a foreign power’. Such organisations are subject to monitoring every six months, which lawyers have warned could include forcing them to hand over internal communications and confidential sources. Organisations that do not comply are subject to large fines.

Earlier this year, Georgian Dream introduced a direct translation of the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) in parliament, meant to replace the controversial foreign agent law. Failure to comply with the law can be punishable by up to five years of imprisonment, a fine of up to $10,000, or both.

According to the explanatory note attached to the new draft law, the reason for adopting a ‘precise analogue’ of FARA was that the majority of civil society organisations receiving foreign funding refused to register themselves under the currently existing foreign agents law.

The new legislation passed its first reading in parliament on 3 March.

In barrage of legislation, Georgian Dream approves new foreign agent law in its first reading

The ruling party claims that the new law is a word-for-word translation of America’s Foreign Agents Registration Act.

OC MediaYousef Bardouka