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Citizens of Foreign Countries to Have Right to Organize Assemblies and Manifestations

December 18, 2012
 Maka Malakmadze, Adjara

On December 12, 2012 Constitutional Court of Georgia satisfied lawsuit of Mariana Kiku, citizen of Moldova. She had appealed against the Parliament of Georgia and requested to declare Article 5 Part III of the Law of Georgia on Assembly and Manifestation non-constitutional. 

Under this norm, citizen of a foreign country shall not organize or attorney an assembly and manifestation in Georgia. 

Constitutional Court concluded the disputable provision partly echoed the context of the norms found non-constitutional by its April 18, 2011 judgment, when the Court had partly satisfied the lawsuit. Namely, it found the norms unconstitutional, which prohibited organization of assemblies and manifestations within 20 meters of radius from certain institutions and administrative bodies, including the entrances to the courts. Besides, the Court found the norm, which did not allow people without Georgian citizenship to organize and be responsible for assemblies, non-constitutional.

Although the Parliament of Georgia introduced amendments and added some provisions to the Law on Assemblies and Manifestations on July 1, 2011, the norm, declared to be unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court, was partly restored in the new edition of the law. Citizens of foreign countries still cannot organize assemblies and manifestations in Georgia.

Constitutional Court of Georgia clarified that with their April 18, 2011 judgment (N2/482,483,487,502 ), the prohibition from the unconstitutional law was valid with regard to any person, who does not hold Georgian citizenship. Thus, the Court satisfied the lawsuit of Moldavian citizen with the judgment of the preliminary trial. 

Gia Kartsivadze, lawyer of Adjara office of the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association: “Constitutional Court satisfied the lawsuit without essential discussion because it had already discussed this issue. Amendments introduced by the Parliament of Georgia, which prohibited citizens of foreign countries to organize assemblies, is already allowed today.”

It is noteworthy that from January to July of 2011 Human Rights Center monitored practical implementation of the Freedom of Assembly in Georgia. The monitoring was carried out within the framework of the OSCE/ODIHR project “Capacity building for human rights defenders on monitoring freedom of assembly in Georgia.” After the monitoring, HRC recommended to the Parliament of Georgia with regard to citizens of foreign countries among many other issues: “Restriction on foreign citizens’ rights to act as organizers of assemblies using public thoroughfare under Article 5 can also be considered disproportionate. The case of foreign citizen-organized demonstration was observed during the reporting period. The assembly was not a large-scale in this particular case but such events can exceed the boundaries of the Article 5 in future.” 

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