It’s hard to keep track of all the repressions being enacted lately and this is buried in the news cycle with Khazaradze / Japaridze getting thrown in jail today but even in that context this is a super important one.
The amendment reverses the burden of proof in case of censorship from the oppressor to the oppressed , which essentially means free speech is now not protected in practice where it is the government silencing critics.
Further it removes both truth and public interest as a defense in libel / defamation cases, so e.g. a journalist publishes a piece accusing some politician of corruption – it’s now sufficient that their reputation was damaged by the article even if they did in fact do those things.
Also parliament are fast tracking this under accelerated procedure (10 days) so I guess they intend to use it.
The amendment essentially means speech is no longer a protected right in Georgia. It’s still there in the consistution, but with a captured constitutional court it’s meaningless.
Posted by jandaba7
4 Comments
This is why they arrested politicians, to draw attention away from the “parliament” which is arguably worse.
Welcome to russia
ბევრ ტლუს კიდევ გონია რომ დემოკრატიაში ვცხოვრობთ. სისხლიანი 9 წელი იძახონ
Self-inflicted. Georgia bought into GD’s populism and let them fester for over a decade. The electorate had multiple chances to excise the cancer before it metastasized but chose not to.