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What Kind of Georgian United States Shall We Have?

April 27, 2010
 Ana Sheshaberidze

Director of the Liberty Institute of Georgia Levan Ramishvili prepared draft-amendments to the constitution of Georgia – “American Model of Power Separation, Restriction and Balance”; the draft-project caused different opinions among the governmental officials. Ramishvili’s project, which will be discussion by the Constitutional Commission, aims to change the administrative arrangement of Georgia and division of the country into states. According to the same project, the position of the prime-minister shall be abolished and the main executors will be the president, the regional governor and the city mayor. The main executor can implement his/her activities for 5 years and the constitution commission will approve his candidature. The project aims to create double-chamber parliament which will be staffed by senators and the MPs from the states.

The professor of the constitutional law, member of the Republic Party Vakhtang Khmaladze said the project of Levan Ramishvili is eclectic and added that semi-presidential model of the government is dangerous for Georgia. He said the project has nothing to do with the American mode except the title.

Vakhtang Khmaladze: “It is very eclectic project and has only one common thing with the American Model – it is title. It is mostly the combination of separate parts of the constitutions of the South American states. Thus, there is no systemic analyze in it. There are resolutions which are completely irrelevant for Georgia and they will be artificial for Georgia. For example, the name of the country – United States of Georgia. Simply, similar model is the result of federal arrangement of the state whose basis is the separate existence of different entities within the state which later unify voluntarily. The situation is completely different in Georgia; the parts of Georgia have not been independent parts for more than 2 centuries; so similar understanding of the issue is not natural.

Afterwards, the formation of the government is also disputable. The formation of the parliament and rules for the election of the president will result into the government where we will have the president and the parliamentary majority as a representative of the political power. It contradicts the principle of constitutionalism according to which the voters should have right to create the different branches of the government which will expose the real picture of the state. This picture changes throughout years; to execute this principle the time of the election of the parliament and the president should not coincide with each other. It is quite possible that the society will change their attitude and give advantage to the different political power. Possibility to create similar balance is completely excluded by the model which is called American one by Ramishvili. In fact, it is very far from the American mode.”

Vakhtang Khmaladze thinks that the main danger is semi-presidential governance. “There is not clear line between the powers of the parliament and government. It creates the threat of confrontation between the president and the government. Since both of them have executive power, they might oppose each other. It can lead us to a very serious crisis, where we might fail to find the constitutional solution of the problem. Thus, semi-presidential governance is dangerous.” 
 
The author of the project Levan Ramishvili thinks the threats mentioned by Vakhtang Khmaladze are unreal. Ramishvili is the member of the state constitution commission of Georgia which was established under the resolution of the president of Georgia on June 8, 2009.

Levan Ramishvili: “Khamaldze’s opinions are not competent. No separate government will exist in Georgia. We will have president as a leader of the executive government and there will not be any other separate authority. Nobody will take decisions without him. It is nonsense to claim that it will cause disagreement between the president and the government and crisis in the country.”

According to Ramishvili, his project will be discussed by the constitutional commission in autumn.

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