Access to public information

The implementation of this commitment has stalled since 2017. According to the OGP IRM assessment, the main challenge in the adoption of a standalone FoI law is the resistance from law enforcement and security agencies that are reluctant to subject themselves to the provision on the creation of a new monitoring and enforcement body, information commissionaire, with a mandate to impose sanctions for the violation of the law.⁴ The lack of coordination and communication between different public agencies to explain the novelties introduced by the draft could be another reason for delay.

Finally, the fact that in 2020–2021 the OGP and anti-corruption policy coordination function, including working on the FoI draft law, moved from the Ministry of Justice to the Administration of the Government (AoG),⁵ followed by the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, has further hampered this process. It is noteworthy that in the case of the OGP, the transfer of coordination functions to the AoG was based on the CSO recommendations to ensure that the OGP process is more efficient and that the state agencies feel more responsibility to their commitments.⁶ However, in the case of the Anti-Corruption Council, the transfer of functions to the AoG was the government’s hasty, arbitrary decision, not based on CSO recommendations. While these transfers and the Covid-19 pandemic may be legitimate reasons for delay, the CSO representatives interviewed for this report believe that the real reason is the lack of the government’s will, stemming from the uncontrolled domination of the ruling party over almost all state institutions in Georgia. It is indicative that most of the work on improving the existing FoI framework was done seven years ago and there has not been any major progress made since then.

According to CSOs and an independent consultant interviewed for this report, a major opportunity for the government to improve the existing legislative and institutional framework of the FoI in Georgia is to use the vast resources and the strong willingness for assistance from international entities and platforms, such as the EU, the OECD, USAID and the OGP, all of which hold this issue as a high priority. At the same time, the reconvening of the anti-corruption and OGP councils at the AoG will provide these international entities and local CSOs with an opportunity to raise this issue again directly with the relevant public agencies. The post-election environment after the 2020 parliamentary and 2021 municipal elections could also create a new opportunity to put the FoI issue back on the high political agenda. These elections, especially the parliamentary election, made all stakeholders focus on election and court reforms that overshadowed the OGP and anti-corruption reforms. Political tensions were extremely high between the ruling party and the opposition in the pre-election period and afterwards, and the key donors such as the USAID and the EU that provide the largest contributions for OGP and anti-corruption reforms were busy dissipating those tensions and the resulting crisis.

The government and the parliament should expedite the adoption of the existing draft FoI law that was developed seven years ago. This should be accompanied with a quick round of consultations with stakeholders engaged in the drafting process. The government can take commitments in the 2022–2023 National Anti-Corruption Strategy and the OGP Action Plan to support this process; however; it might not be necessary given this is a pre-existing commitment and the only thing required at this stage is the willingness of the Government to fulfil it.

The government should use the opportunities from international donors, such as the EU, the OECD and the USAID who place a high emphasis on FoI to move the adoption process of the draft law forward.

The government also needs to take the increasing public demand and calls for reform by CSOs and media outlets seriously.