Parliament official says Gov’t acts in interest of Georgian people in response to CoE report

Rati Ionatamishvili, the Chair of the Georgian Parliament’s Human Rights and Civil Integration Committee, on Thursday reaffirmed that the Georgian Government was operating in line with the interests of the Georgian people, stressing that any calls that contradict the demands of the Georgian public will never be endorsed.

Ionatamishvili’s remarks come after the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights Michael O'Flaherty on Wednesday published a report, which stated that the law on the protection of family values was creating a basis for legal discrimination against LGBT people and was incompatible with the European Court of Human Rights and its case law.

“The Georgian Government acts in the interest of the Georgian people. The calls that contradict the demands of our public will never be shared. Especially when these people, bureaucrats, demand the repeal of laws that had a broad consensus in our public, including the law on family values ​​and the protection of minors or the law on transparency. They have no arguments. Of course, this is the political agenda that these particular bureaucrats have, but this is not interesting to us since we have not heard an argument before, and we do not hear it today”, the Parliament official said.