A total of 51 MPs from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) have signed a written declaration threatening to challenge the credentials of the Georgian delegation and call for their expulsion if Georgia fails to reverse their authoritarian backslide.
The declaration on Tuesday cited a PACE resolution adopted in January that ratified the credentials of the Georgian delegation on the condition that Georgia would meet certain benchmarks by April. These benchmarks included the ‘release of political prisoners and the announcement of new parliamentary elections under improved electoral conditions’.
The MPs noted that the situation in Georgia ‘has worsened dramatically’, citing the imprisonment of senior opposition leaders as well as civil society activists and journalists facing ‘politically motivated criminal prosecution’.
‘This is no longer a series of isolated incidents but a sustained campaign to eliminate democratic opposition, restrict freedom of expression and silence civil society’, the MPs wrote.
The declaration continued by noting that ‘this path of repression and disengagement violates Georgia’s obligations as a Council of Europe member’, emphasising that to ignore such backsliding from a member state would ‘undermine the very foundation’ of PACE.
In response to the declaration, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze emphasised that Georgia had already suspended their participation in PACE in January.
‘Under such conditions, you see how dire the state of European bureaucracy is — they demand suspension of a status we had already suspended with our own hands’, Kobakhidze told reporters.
Previously, in April, based on the deadline given in the January resolution, PACE again adopted a critical resolution towards Georgia, upholding the previous demands, including the call for new elections and the release of those detained during protests.
The text also emphasised that ‘the continuing democratic backsliding’ in Georgia ‘would not be conducive’ to ratifying the credentials of a new Georgian delegation should they be presented at a future assembly part-session.
OC Media
