Introducetion

On April 3, 2024, the government re-introduced the anti-constitutional law restricting and discrediting the activities of civil society and media in the parliament, which was retracted exactly 1 year ago after mass protests and made a public promise that it would no longer put this initiative on the political agenda. This year, the government initiated the bill with the same text. Only the terms were changed and the term "agent of a foreign country" was replaced by the term "organization carrying the interests of a foreign power".

Against the background of the parliamentary discussions of the draft law and the mass peaceful protests organized against it, the issue of the restrictive legal regime for the work of the media was again put on the agenda in the parliament. As is known to the public, the new rule of accreditation of journalists was approved in the Parliament of Georgia 1 year ago, on February 6, 2023, and on September 4, 2023, the rules ensuring security of the Parliament were tightened. The mentioned two legal acts are used by the authorities against journalists and limit their opportunities to carry out journalistic activities during the consideration of almost all important legislative issues.

Similar to the previous year, this year the entry to the Parliament of Georgia was again restricted to accredited online, print media and radio journalists. Only a few television journalists were allowed to work in the legislative body. According to the statement published on the website of the Parliament, the decision was made due to "additional security measures". However, it was not explained what kind of danger journalists pose by working in the parliament. According to Shalva Papuashvili, the Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia, the restriction of the entry of accredited online media journalists to the Parliament was caused by the fact that instead of carrying out journalistic activities, they protested the adoption of the Russian law, which was an abuse of rights and a violation of journalistic ethics.

The mentioned restrictive approaches were used on a full scale yet in the previous year by the Parliament. At the first stage, the Parliament suspended the accreditation of journalists, due to the protest organized by them in the Parliament. In particular, on March 5, 2023, it became known to Publika and Tabula that the accreditation of some of the journalists of the mentioned online editions was suspended in Parliament. According to the media, this decision of the Parliament apparatus is related to the protest against the Russian law held on March 2. Some of the journalists whose accreditation was suspended protested the Russian law in the parliament, while some covered this issue. [1]

The Parliament apparatus also suspended the accreditation of more than one journalist due to the violation of Article 15, Clause 2 of the new accreditation rule, which obliges the journalist to terminate the interview in the event of refusal by a member of the parliament, an employee of its apparatus, or a person visiting the legislative body. Based on this rule, in April 2023, the accreditation of 3 TV journalists and cameramen was suspended. In particular, the accreditation of the journalists of "TV Pirveli" and "Mtavari" was suspended due to the incident of the question posed to the deputy of "Georgian Dream", Eliso Bolkvadzi, which was related to the issue of sanctions imposed by the US State Department on 4 Georgian judges. The journalist of the TV company "Formula" was suspended accreditation due to the questions posed about the presenter and founder of "Post TV", the chief propagandist of the government, Shalva Ramishvili, to the representatives of the ruling political party on the allegations about cases of sexual harassment of several women from his side. In the month of May 2023, the accreditation of "Formula" journalist and cameraman were suspended due to asking a question about the imposition of a visa-free regime by the Russian Federation to the member of the parliament Irakli Zarkua. MP Irakli Zarkua appealed to the Chairman of the Parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, with the request to suspend their accreditation. Zarkva expressed dissatisfaction with the journalist's questions related to Putin's decision to establish a visa-free regime for Georgian citizens and restore direct flights.

The analysis of the practice of restricting the activities of journalists during the last 1 year shows that the Speaker of the Parliament suspends the accreditation to many journalists based on his own order and, using the new rules established within the Parliament, deprives the media of the possibility of effective and unrestricted coverage of the parliamentary life. Parliament is the main political body in a democratic state, and the restrictions and limitations imposed in this space have a heavy impact on the media environment and the quality of democracy in general in the country.

The purpose of this document is to analyze the compliance of the rules of accreditation of journalists and of protection of the parliament approved by the Parliament of Georgia with the rights guaranteed by the constitution and the impact of their action on freedom of press.

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