Georgian parliament adopts law on deoligarchization on first reading

Georgian parliament adopts law on deoligarchization

The Parliament of Georgia adopted a law on deoligarchization on the first reading. It was supported by 80 deputies, with nine voting against.

The bill, prepared by a special working group, defines an oligarch as a person with significant economic and political weight in society. According to the bill, an individual who simultaneously meets at least three of the criteria will be considered an oligarch:

• participates in political life;
• has a significant impact on the media;
• is the ultimate beneficiary of a legal entity that occupies a dominant position in the market and maintains or improves this position within one year;

The confirmed amount of assets of a person and those entrepreneurial legal entities where they are a beneficiary, as of January 1 of the corresponding year, is 1,000,000 times the subsistence minimum established for able-bodied persons.
The decision to recognize a citizen as an oligarch will be made by parliament. Then the oligarchs will be entered into a special register. The rules relating to this register will be approved by the parliament, and the apparatus of parliament will be responsible for the creation and maintenance of the register.

A person entered in the register of oligarchs is prohibited from:

• donating their own funds, performing works, providing goods, services or funds in support of political parties, through related persons and / or through legal entities where he is the ultimate beneficiary. Also, in accordance with the Electoral Code of Georgia, making donations to the electoral fund of candidates (except for their own electoral fund) and finance political parties during the election campaign;
• be a buyer (beneficiary of the buyer) in the privatization of large facilities;
• finance any political campaign, meeting or demonstration where there are political demands.
• The ruling party’s approach to deoligarchization is so fair that it caused “embarrassment among the opposition,” says Gia Volsky, MP from the ruling party:

“The approach of the political team of the Georgian Dream created certain inconveniences for the radical opposition even in terms of polemics on this topic. There is a conversation, as usual, about Bidzina Ivanishvili, about the Georgian Dream in general, about the attitude to certain issues, but there is no talk about the bill.”

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On June 17, the European Commission prepared a report on granting Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova the status of candidates for EU membership. It was decided that Ukraine and Moldova will receive this status, while Georgia will first have to fulfill the conditions of 12 points.

One of the main points is deoligarchization.

“The commitment to ‘deoligarchization’ must be fulfilled by eliminating undue influence in the economic, political and social spheres,” the 12-point plan says.

According to the opposition, the European Union is referring to the informal ruler of Georgia, Bidzina Ivanishvili, when it talks about deoligarchization. The authorities believe that this law applies to the owner of the Formula TV company, David Kezerashvili, and the third president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, currently in prison.

Georgian parliament adopts law on deoligarchization