Parliamentary majority leader Mamuka Mdinaradze explains what legislative changes Georgian Dream is planning to make, so that, according to him, “the government has the appropriate levers to effectively govern the country.”
As Mdinaradze stated at the press conference after the parliamentary majority session, a number of regulations in both the Administrative Offenses and Criminal Codes will be tightened.
According to him, one of the innovations is that attacking or threatening violence against a political official, civil servant, or public servant will become punishable under criminal law.
“We are initiating legislative changes to replace laws aimed at ineffective governance of the country with norms that will provide the government elected by the people with the appropriate levers to govern the country. Today we present to you the first part of the implementation of this approach, which has already been initiated in the Parliament of Georgia, and we promise the public that this process will continue until the established norms are completely replaced by the adoption of norms necessary for the proper functioning and independence of the state.
A number of regulations are being tightened, first of all, in the Code of Administrative Offenses, including, for example, holding rallies in closed spaces, buildings, without the prior consent of the owner; fines for petty hooliganism, vandalism, disobeying the request of a law enforcement officer and insulting them, blocking court entrances and other similar administrative violations are being increased, and the term of administrative imprisonment is also being increased to 60 days. An administrative offense is defined as verbal insults to a state political figure or public servant in connection with his or her activities, for which strict sanctions will also be defined.
We will also have a number of changes in the Criminal Code, which are conditioned by the prevention of fascist actions of pseudo-liberals, which we have seen a lot in recent times. In particular, public calls for violent actions were previously punishable only by a fine and community service, while with the current changes, this action will be punishable by imprisonment for a term of up to 3 years. The term of criminal imprisonment for resistance, threats and violence against police officers is increasing, this will move to the category of serious crimes, from 5 to 6 years. Also, sanctions will be tightened for attacks on police officers, government officials and their family members, in the case of it is done in a group, multiple times, and with dangerous means. That is, these specific circumstances will be considered aggravating circumstances and there will be a relatively strict sanction for this. The punishment is also increasing for violating the health of a police officer. A person who attacks or threatens violence against a political official, a state employee, or a public servant will also be punished under criminal law, and this will be a new norm. We will also have a number of administrative penalties, including some that will be tightened,” Mdinaradze said.
