“Georgian Dream” Chairman Irakli Kobakhidze called the recent U.S. Embassy statement, critical of the ruling party over abolishing the State Inspector’s Service and judiciary moves, “unfair” and “wrong.”
Claiming that the statement contained “factual” and “human errors,” MP Kobakhidze said such statements “undermine the Georgian public’s trust in western partners.”
He said “human errors, false information, and so on” can serve “neither as an explanation nor a justification” for the public.
The ruling party chairperson said the GD has often taken the advice of international partners into account, albeit added that “there are, unfortunately, exceptional cases when we hear unfair and wrong assessments on their part, and this is another such example.”
As one example of a “factual error” in the statement, he denied “abolishing” the State Inspector’s Service as cited in the Embassy’s statement. “In fact, (the State Inspector’s) Service was split into two parts, and its competencies were not limited but, on the contrary, the authority of this service has been in total expanded.”
In a starkly worded statement, the U.S. Embassy slammed the ruling party on January 3 for undermining government accountability by abolishing the State Inspector’s Service, and undermining faith in the judiciary by appointing yet another Supreme Court justice using “a flawed selection process.”
The criticism followed the Georgian Dream voting in the December 30 extraordinary parliament session to dissolve the State Inspector’s Service, an outspoken independent agency tasked with monitoring personal data protection and probing abuse of power, in defiance of local and international outcry. The changes foresee creating two new separate bodies tasked with probing abuse of power by law enforcement and monitoring data privacy.
Earlier, the ruling Georgian Dream's intention to scrap the State Inspector's Service triggered a backlash from the opposition and NGOs, who linked the ruling party's move to the recent steps by the Inspector's Service in relation to jailed former President Mikheil Saakashvili.
Georgian Dream tabled a draft law proposing to scrap the State Inspector's Service and create in its place two agencies - the special investigation service and personal data protection service.
According to the draft, the special investigation service will be empowered to investigate crimes presumably committed by officials, while the personal data protection service will supervise the legality of processing personal data and exercise control over access to electronic communications databases.
