New Law for IDPs

IDPs residing in Georgia will receive identification cards on temporary residence. Besides that, some compensation is also foreseen for them within the draft law. The Parliament has already discussed the legislative initiative at one session. The initiator of the draft law was the Human Rights Parliamentary Committee.

MP Nazi Aronia will speak in details about the draft law in her conversation with the Human Rights Center. 

Journalist: Ms. Nazi, please define us what amendments are going to be introduced to the law on “Internally Displaced People”?

Nazi Aronia: The law on Internally Displaced People is added with Article 4’ that is on Identification Cards issued according to IDP’s temporary residence. It is a document that confirms the citizenship of a person with IDP status. Today, the IDPs have only IDP card and no Identity Cards. The new document will give information about their temporary inhabitance in certain area.

-Several months ago there was some information that IDPs would be deprived of their status and in exchange to it they would be compensated with some money. The initiative resulted into a great argument and then nobody mentioned the topic any more. Is not this new initiative the next stage for that old one?

N. A. It is not right. Issuing residential card does not mean that IDP cards would be powerless. They will have both of them. The Ministry of Justice has already prepared new Identity Cards. As far as I know they have prepared 5 000 copies of it by now. The District Registration Service Offices within the Ministry of Justice should give away the IDs. The document should give details about the residence of an IDP in addition to other data that is envisaged in the ID.

-According to my information, the members of the Parliament had controversial opinions regarding the draft law. What were you arguing about?

N. A. Yes, you are right. There were several opponents who claimed that IDPs might indicate wrong address and they demanded to make IDPs produce notifications from the Municipalities. But the Law on Citizenship states that a person must produce only his/her personal application in order to receive the ID. We have not faced any difficulties until now regarding the situation. If we demanded IDPs to produce some other documents, it would have caused some additional problems. Subsequently I did not agree their initiative.

-As far as I know, there has not been defined what would be the length of the Residential ID cards of IDPs?

N. A. The draft law states that the residential ID will be issued for three-year time. However, we have not made final decision regarding the question yet. The term might have been increased up to 5 years because the process requires great expenses and IDs cannot be changed so quickly.

- As for the Compensation, can you tell us the concrete figure of the sum the IDPs are going to be compensated with?

N. A. The question is not settled yet. The current law envisages monthly allowance for IDPs. The amendments state that an IDP would receive some additional aid together with the previous allowance. The additional sum for new aid should be envisaged by the state budget and besides that, the amount of the new aid is not calculated yet. We have not decided the regularity of distributing the new aid either. It might not be monthly aid.

-What is the age of the IDPs who are supposed to be given residential IDs and new allowances?

N. A. The age is not restricted. Everybody will receive them. The law will start functioning as soon as it is published. We suppose it will happen in May.

Eka Gulua