NGOs appealed to the court about the Resolution adopted by the Parliament of Georgia on the unification of self-governing cities with community municipalities. The organizations demand from the Court to annul the Resolution N987-II of the Parliament of Georgia of 15 June 2017, on the basis of which Gori, Ambrolauri, Mtskheta, Ozurgeti, Telavi, Akhaltsikhe and Zugdidi Municipalities have been established.
Despite the demand of civil organizations and local population to conduct the public hearing of the issue in accordance with Article 10.2 of the Local Self-Government Code, the Government has refused to hold the public hearing. The process was practically closed and the decision was made with the accelerated procedure, which is the violation of the requirement of the Local Self-Government Code to hold public consultations with the population. The Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure of Georgia indicated in the documentation submitted to the Municipalities and to the Parliament of Georgia that the meetings with populations have been conducted by the National Association of Local Authorities of Georgia.
It is noteworthy that, in accordance with the Local Self-Government Code, meetings with the local population should be conducted by the Government Commission on Regional Development and not by any other organization. Furthermore, the protocol published by the National Association of Local Authorities directly states that 7 regional meetings were held, which were mostly attended by the Mayors / Governors, and representatives of City Council and the Regional Administrations. Population was not informed about the meetings in advance. Consequently, the purpose of these meetings could not be the consultations with them. In addition, meetings with local population should be held separately in community municipalities and self-governing cities. Despite the fact that the Ministry officially indicates that the public consultations were held by the National Association of Local Authorities, it did not provide the documents asserting the meetings to the NGOs in spite of their request.
Therefore, the non-governmental organizations believe that a mandatory requirement of Article 10.2 of the Local Self-Government Code on consultation with the population of the relevant municipality (municipalities) and they demand from the court to invalidate the resolution adopted by the Parliament, since the result of this reforms raises doubts not only about the legitimacy of the reform (because in most cases, it was carried out against the will of relevant municipalities), but the legality of the procedure is also under question, due to which submitted demands shall be fully met.
