Georgia celebrates 20th anniversary of the Constitution

A festive reception on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Constitution of Georgia will be organized by President Giorgi Margvelashvili. It will be held at the residence of the head of state, the head of the administration of President David Pataraya reported.

"This is an important day – the current Constitution, which is the main legal framework law of the country, is 20 years old," he noted.

The reception will be attended by diplomats, representatives of legislative, executive and judicial authorities of Georgia, as well as journalists. In addition, members of the Georgian parliament of second convocation, whose names are associated with the adoption of the current constitution, have been invited.

On August 24th 1995 Parliament, relying on the basic principles of the constitution of 1921, adopted a new Constitution of Georgia. On October 15th 2010 amendments were made to it, in order to limit the authority of the president and strengthen the functions of the prime minister and parliament, Sputnik Georgia recalls.

According to the head of the Centre for Global Studies, Nana Devdariani, in its current form the basic law of the country is imperfect and requires some changes. "During the rule of Mikheil Saakashvili the Constitution was altered, because at the end of his second term he could no longer be president, and, of course, wanted instead to remain indefinitely as prime minister. Saakashvili could not envisage his party losing the parliamentary elections, even in a bad dream," she explained the origin of this problem.

The head of the Institute for Strategy Management, Georgian political scientist Petre Mamradze, who was one of the parliamentarians who voted for it 20 years ago, is also critical in relation to the fundamental law of the country in its current form. "In the last years of his rule Saakashvili personally made changes to the Constitution. He prepared a prime ministerial chair for himself and he conveyed all the power to the head of government. Moreover, at the time the world called Parliament a rubber stamp of Saakashvili, who stamped his stupidity, foreign press wrote this. And indeed, our Constitution is now described as a prime ministerial government. And it needs to be changed, because the distribution of functions is violated. Prosecution functions and many other things are not complied with," he believes.