SHORTCOMINGS AND CHALLENGES OF THE NEW EDITION OF THE CONSTITUTION OF GEORGIA
Abstract
In the relatively brief history of the existence of the Constitution of Georgia since 1995, the year 2017 holds a special place. Even though relatively principled amendments were introduced to the Constitution previously (in 2004 and 2010), but with its extent, the constitutional law, adopted by the Parliament in 2017, significantly exceeds all previous amendments. These amendments were adopted by the parliament of Georgia on 13 October of 2017 by the constitutional law, which came into force on 16 December 2018, upon the oath of the newly elected president. It may be stated that from December 17, our country resulted in completely new legal constitutional reality, as provisions to the Constitution have changed so drastically in terms of content, structure, and quantity, that Georgia became a classical parliamentary republic, but the number of articles reduced from 109 to 78. Changes were introduced to all chapters of the Constitution, in particular the responsibilities of the president, parliament, and government. Slight changes were made to chapter 2 of the Constitution, provisions determining the fundamental rights and freedoms of a person. Part of the amendments introduced in this chapter may be evaluated positively, as we can bring examples of recognizing namely fundamental rights such as academic freedom, physical inviolability, and access to the internet. Despite that, it is obvious that because of the changes, some gaps were encountered in several articles of the second chapter of the Constitution, which create serious legal constitutional challenges and provoke problems that may, on one hand, create difficulties in terms of the protection of human rights. The purpose of this article is to analyze the mentioned gaps an challenges and demonstrate to politicians, as well as to legal constitutionalists, the problems that are deriving from them, as these challenges may be responded to and the problems solved only by the proper changes in the Constitution.
