President of Georgia explains the veto over Eavesdropping draft bill
By Liza Mchedlidze
Friday, September 2, 2022
The President of Georgia, Salome Zourabichvili, at a briefing held in the administration, explained why she vetoed the so-called Eavesdropping draft bill. According to her, there are issues when the veto carries a very high political mark because it concerns the system. The president explains that the eavesdroppings "concern our system today and tomorrow."
"There is a dividing line here, are we still in the Soviet heritage, or are we moving into a truly European system? Are our private lives protected from eavesdropping or not?! We know that we still live in a country where if we go somewhere and want to talk, we think about whether we should take out the phone or leave it? Then we overcome it and say 'to hell with it', let there be a phone and let them listen - this is not European life, it is not the protection of human rights, this is another system and we have to get out of this system. That's what I wanted to say with this veto" President Zourabichvili said.
According to her, in the form in which the changes were adopted, unreasonably and in a hasty manner, etc., all these raise new doubts that "these are the changes adopted to consolidate power".
"This is not possible at the moment when we announce that in these few months we are going to get the candidate status. If we are going towards Europe, we have to go. If we are not going, then we have to say. The veto was telling us to decide once and for all where we are going. I am very happy I know that the Venice Commission shared the grounds of this veto, and if it can be said about me that I am incompetent, I think that it is not a little embarrassing for some people to accuse the Venice Commission of incompetence, especially those who at other times and in other situations used the conclusions of this commission. So, we have to be a little more serious", Zurabishvili says.
On June 7, the draft law initiated by Georgian Dream deputies was adopted by the Parliament in the third reading. 78 deputies supported the project of changes in the Criminal Procedure Code. The amendments were subsequently vetoed by the President of Georgia, whose administration requested an urgent conclusion from the Venice Commission on July 1.
With the adopted draft law, the deadlines related to the conduct of secret investigative actions were extended and the crimes for which the conduct of secret investigative actions will be permitted increased.
The draft law and its hasty adoption were negatively evaluated by the ambassadors of the European Union and the United States of America in Georgia.
