Transparency International Georgia (TI Georgia) has submitted its recommendations regarding the Open Parliament Georgia Action Plan 2017-2018 to the Permanent Parliamentary Council on Open and Transparent Governance.

The recommendations deal with the following main issues:

• Strengthening parliamentary control – Improving the  procedure of discussion of reports related to freedom of information;
• Increasing the transparency of parliamentary activities – Indicating the number of and reasons for absences of MPs on the website of the Parliament, uploading shorthand records and protocols, creating video archives, etc;
• Increasing the transparency of the Parliament’s expenses – Uploading information about the goals of MPs’ official trips, allowances, and sources of funding to the website of the Parliament;     
• Ensuring that citizens are informed of parliamentary and legislative activities – Improving the content of explanatory notes, introducing an information bulletin service, etc.

Information about the Permanent Parliamentary Council on Open and Transparent Governance

The Parliament of Georgia set up the Permanent Parliamentary Council on Open and Transparent Governance by a decree of the Chairman of the Parliament on January 16, 2017.The Permanent Parliamentary Council on Open and Transparent Governance is assisted by a consultative group composed of representatives of international and non-governmental organizations. The objectives of the consultative group are to prepare recommendations and proposals for the Parliamentary Council, to contribute to the effective exercise of its powers, and to monitor the fulfillment of commitments provided for in the Open Parliament Georgia Action Plan.     

TI Georgia was also a member of the consultative group in the Parliament of the eighth convocation, during which it proposed commitments to be included in the Open Parliament Georgia Action Plan 2015-2016. TI Georgia prepared two reports on the state of fulfillment of commitments envisaged by the Action Plan.

The Parliament of the ninth convocation has started to work on the Action Plan 2017-2018. Below we present our organization’s opinions and recommendations about commitments, which include two commitments provided for in the previous action plan that were left unfulfilled and seven new commitments.

The proposed recommendations are going to help the Parliament improve openness and transparency and to contribute to informing citizens on legislative activities.