On September 25, 2015, the Procedural Issues and Rules Committee of the Parliament of Georgia will consider legislative proposal prepared by four (4) Georgian NGOs on the “Amendments in the Rules of Procedures” of the Parliament of Georgia.  

The Georgian NGOs: Young Barristers, Center for Civic Involvement, Position and Youth Center – Our Generation 1921 filed alternative version of the legislative proposal after the proposal offered by Parliament itself gained negative appraisal on behalf of the different NGOs. The latter invisaged abolishment of only “family condition” as the justification for absence. 

Representatives of the NGOs believe, that this draft law can't actually promote MP attendance during the sessions, as long as it doesn’t provide financial sanctions against missing deputies.  “Family conditions” has been removed from the list of the reasonable excuses justifying MP absence; nevertheless, the initiative is not sufficiently oriented  on the systemic resolution of the problem. Accordingly, the NGOs mentioned above, offer an alternative legislative proposal, which was submitted to the Parliament by the “Center for Civil Involvement” in the name all above-mentioned NGOs on July 3, 2015.    

According to the legislative proposal, developed by NGOs, following amendments should be made to the Rules of Procedures of the Parliament:  

• Illness of the MP, death of family member, delivery of the family member and business trip are regarded as an excuse for absence during committee and plenary sessions. Relevant parliament officials should be aware of those reasons – the Chairman of the Committee (Deputy Chairman of the Committee) in case of missing Committee sessions and the Chairman of the Faction (Deputy Chairman of the Faction) in case of missing Plenary sessions.  
• If within 1 day, an audit of the voting and registration process reveals that the vote of the MP, who was not actually attending the session, had been recorded during the voting process, 20% out of his/her wage will be stopped. Second and each subsequent repetition of the same action during the same session will cost MP 40 % of the monthly salary.  
• If the MP, who is in charge of presentation of the legislative proposal misses session without a reasonable excuse, 20% out of his/her wage will be stopped.
• If the MP, who is the member of 2 Committees, fails to attend 35% of sessions within 1 month period, and the MP, who is a member of 1 Committee fails to attend 25 % of the sessions within the same period, without reasonable excuse, he/she will have to pay 50% of the monthly salary and will be dismissed from all parliamentary positions.
• If the MP fails to attend more than 1 plenary session within a month period without reasonable excuse, he/she will pay 50% of the monthly salary for each missed session and will be dismissed from parliamentary positions.

“Young barristers” would like to note, that “Center for Civil Involvement” has prepared statistics about the eighth convocation parliament’s attendance of sessions.  The monitoring revealed, that in most cases, parliament sessions are not attended due to the MP’s family conditions. “Center for Civil Involvement”, “Young Barristers”, “Position” and “Youth Center – Our Generation 1921” have agreed on the creation of the working group to prepare legislative proposal regarding the issue. After the joint public statement of the organizations of June 11, 2015, it became known that the Parliament has also started working on the problem.