Home > 2.6 Campaign finance > GEORGIA - Joint Urgent Opinion on Draft Amendments to the Election Code
 
 
 
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Paragraph 54
 

The aforementioned proposed amendments are a significant initiative which should reduce the instances of misuse of administrative resources. However, the amendments do not address previous recommendations put forward by the ODIHR and Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) to take significant measures to prevent the misuse of administrative resources, including repeal of a legal provision that allows unrestricted campaigning by high-level public officials, strengthening sanctions for misuse of administrative resources, and identifying a single authority to consider complaints, investigate and take actions in cases of abuse of administrative resources. In addition, the occurrence of online social media campaigning by public servants during working hours, and use of official government webpages for campaign purposes, notable problems in recent elections in Georgia, are not addressed in the draft law. It should also be emphasised that stepping up enforcement of prohibitions on misuse of administrative resources must go hand in hand with strengthening the legislation on this matter. A more comprehensive and systematic regulation on the prevention of the misuse of administrative resources is therefore recommended. Such regulation needs to ensure that any misconduct of public sector employees is interlinked with (disciplinary) sanctions and other rules specifically related to them.