Social Justice Center with the financial support of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) is implementing a new project from 1^st of June – Promoting a consensus-oriented and inclusive constitutional reform process.

The aim of the project is to promote a consensus-oriented and inclusive constitutional reform process which in itself implies of implementing following two objectives:

• Increase the transparency of the constitutional reform;
• Involve different interest groups and particularly the specialists left out of the Commission in the process of constitutional reform;

The Constitutional Commission involves various interest groups in its work. However, the Commission does not involve many important specialists and people interested in the process. There are people and interest groups left out of the constitutional commission, whose competent position would give more legitimacy to the process of the constitutional reform. According to our evaluation only the free access to sessions and publication of the protocols is not enough for ensuring the transparency of the constitutional reform. Not every interested person has an opportunity to attend the meetings and publication of the protocols is a process starched in time. In addition, due to its detailed character, protocols are difficult to perceive.

1.1. Inspiring discussions on constitutional reform through social network

The project team will register a Facebook page under the name of “The constitutional reform of 2012-2014 years”. The page will have 2 functions: one, to inform the society on the processes happening within the frameworks of the reform and second, to create a platform for people interested in voicing their own opinions regarding the issue.

1.2 Ensuring the transparency of the constitutional reform

A project representative will attend every meeting of the Commission and its working groups. Based on the audio records and the transcripts made during each meeting 1-2-page analytical papers will be prepared.

The project team will ensure to spread the information in the society about the problematic issues of the commission.

1.3 Raising awareness of journalists on issues of constitutional law

There is a problem of specialization of journalists in the media space of Georgia. Because of the limited human resources, media outlets cannot afford only one reporter for focusing on one issue. This issue also stands out during the coverage of constitutional reform. In contrast, it is important for media to cover these issues professionally, so that the society can have an adequate knowledge about the current processes. In this respect, it is important to raise awareness of journalists of the basic issues of constitutional law.

20 journalists will attend the training.

The project also envisages the intellectual support of the constitutional commission, which means:

2.1 Issuing expert opinions

For this purpose the project team will publish opinions of specialists on certain issues generated before the Commission– or topics that are desirable to be originated in the future. At different stages of the Commission's work these publication will have different implications. At first this will concern the key trends to which the Commission needs to become responsive to. At the second stage, when specific draft is already being presented – it will include evaluation and analysis of such documents.

2.2. Supporting the participation of an independent group of specialists in a constitutional reform

The project team will support an independently existing group of specialists involved in the constitutional reform. The members of the group are young specialists of Constitutional Law working at different Universities.

Project duration:June 2014 - Decemeber 2014;

Project budget: 33,520 GEL.

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