Nanuka Kruashvili presented information about Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association’s (GYLA) concerns going into Georgia’s Oct. 26 parliamentary election.
Kruashvili discussed some of the troubling laws recently passed in the country of Georgia and what Georgia can expect going into upcoming elections.
“We are expecting of course a lot of violence and we are – we are concerned about our observers who will be unprotected there,” Kruashvili said.
Throughout the course of her lecture, Kruashvili covered the “Transparency of Foreign Influence” law, external influence in Georgia and what is currently at stake with the upcoming elections, clarifying Georgia’s situation for many law students throughout the classroom.
“Transparency of Foreign Influence” Law
The “Transparency of Foreign Influence” law requires nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to register as organizations with foreign influence if they receive more than 20% of their funds from foreign parties, Kruashvili said.
“We called it Russian law,” Kruashvili said. “It was kind of a communication strategy for us as well, to call it ‘Russian’ because everything Russian is not very well regarded in Georgia.”
This Georgian law resembled a previous law that was introduced a decade ago in Russia that was designed to crack down on NGOs and critical media, Kruashvili said.
The Georgian people as well as their foreign partners pushed back against this law originally, causing the Georgia Dream party to revoke it. However, the law was reintroduced with minimal changes in spite of the initial backlash, Kruashvili said.
“They adopted the law, they broke their promise and now what we have as a result – that we have a registry,” Kruashvili said.
This law caused the process of integration into the European Union (EU) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to come to a halt for Georgia as well, Kruashvili said.
GYLA and around 3,000 other NGOs are not signed up for this registry required by the ‘Russian law,’ Kruashvili said.
“We have stated publicly many times that we are not going to register,” Kruashvili said. “This is a bad law, as we call it. It’s unconstitutional.”
External Influence
Associate Professor of Law Colleen P. Graffy commented on how the U.S. can support Georgia.
The U.S. was heavily involved in helping Georgia integrate into the EU and NATO, however this changed with the policies enacted by new leaders of the Georgia Dream Party, Graffy said.
“We have leadership in Georgia that is turning — that does not want EU integration and the NATO integration,” Graffy said. “So the U.S. government is really in difficulty because before we had military exercises and we canceled those because of concern of where this government is going.”
The Georgian government used to receive money from outside governments but this has stopped as well over concerns of how it may be used against civil society, Graffy said.
“A lot hangs on these October 26 elections,” Graffy said.
The Stakes of the Upcoming Elections
These elections are going to be very important, as they are fully proportional for the first time, Kruashvili said.
Georgia’s path towards Europe and to the West is reliant on the outcome of this election, Kruashvili said.
“This is going to be the elections that are going to give us the answer for where is Georgia going to go for the next four years or maybe even more,” Kruashvili said.
The elections are going to determine whether Georgia will become an authoritarian or democratic power, Kruashvili said.
Though a change in power may be challenging as the Georgian Dream party changes the laws to obtain power, Kruashvili said.
However, if the opposition to the Georgian Dream party were to win, the president of Georgia would support the new coalition, Kruashvili said.
“The president of Georgia is not a part of the Georgia Dream party, she kind of operates in opposition at the moment,” Jackson said.
Regardless of the outcome of the election, Kruashvili and GYLA remain optimistic.
“I think experiencing all of this and seeing how Georgians fight and what we have overcome, I don’t think that this is going to be a permanent thing,” Kruashvili said. “I think if they win it’s not going to be by fair voting system.”
Student Response
This lecture helped answer the questions many students, like first-year law student Matthew Conde, had regarding the political affairs of Georgia.
“I’m in Professor Graffy’s criminal law class so she mentioned a little bit about Georgia,” Conde said. “I had already been curious about international studies so I wanted to learn more about just the situation.”
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Contact Mackenzie Krause via email: mackenzie.krause@pepperdine.edu
