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Parliament against the Patriarchate

July 6, 2011

interpressnews

Parliament unanimously adopted law on giving status of legal person of public law to the religious entities in Georgia yesterday. The draft law was unanimously supported by 70 deputies. The opposition did not attend the voting as they were requesting to postpone this issue and refused to participate in it.

According to the new law, “religious entities in close historic ties with Georgia, namely – Roman Catholic Church, Armenian Apostolic Church, Muslim Community, Judaic Community and Evangelic Baptist Church” are going to receive status of legal entity of public law envisaged by the Civil Code of Georgia.

As the head of Legal Issues Committee of Parliament Pavle Kublashvili stated before voting, the consultations between the parliamentary majority and patriarchate had no results. Particularly, the parliamentary majority was offering the patriarchate to constitute additional rights and obligations towards other states, but As Kublashvili stated they could not reach agreement.

The amendments were made to the Civil Code last week. The draft project was heard by the Parliament in an expedited way and was adopted on July 5 through the second and third hearing.

On July 4th the Patriarch of Georgia Ilia II disseminated special statement.  He asked to stop the hearing procedure and conduct the public debates on this issue. The Parliament did not pay attention to Patriarch’s request.

The Patriarchate disseminated special statement regarding this issue on July 5th: “After the Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia made statement on July 4th, the Parliament representatives came to Georgian Patriarchate to present the changed version of the draft law which still unconditionally granted status of legal entity of public law to the religious entities. The Patriarchate again raised proposal to stop the process of adoption of law, discuss it publicly to reach the public consensus and offered a compromise envisaging the international experience. The agreement was not reached. This is very sad as the adopted law contradicts both the church and state interests. We think that this law will lead to negative results in future and the government should be held responsible for it.”

The opposition protests against the expedited adoption of law. The leader of the opposition party Free Democrats Irakli Alasania requests the President to use right of veto regarding this law. Irakli Alasania thinks that before granting the status of legal entity of public law to the religious entities comprehensive public discussions should have been held.

“I am asking Mikheil Saakashvili to use right of veto and not to sign the law adopted by one-party Parliament in an expedited way and to start public discussions on this issue,” – stated Irakli Alasania.

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