The parliament has finally approved almost new version of the country constitution. As per the new version, newly formed balance is being set up among the power branches. The presidential institute has weakened significantly compared with the current one. The major part of its power shifted to Prime minister and authority. The President essentially appears as an arbiter among the branches. According to the assessment of so called radical opposition, new changes in the constitution are fit to future political interests of President Saakashvili. They constantly stress on the threat of “ Putization” in Georgia. Saakashvili categorically denies this prospect, though, he calls everyone for “ giving him some time to work to make the country normal”. 

Parliamentary opposition does not share the authority delight about passing constitutional changes of the project. They remember the process of passing constitutional changes of 2004 and note that the changes were passed by the same pathetic speeches at that time too that have brought the country to terrible results. 

The project of constitutional changes was approved by the 112 votes against 5 held yesterday. 44 changes in all were made in the acting constitution of the country. The final conclusion of Venice commission preceded the voting, which is positive by the claim of parliamentary majority. Though, Venice commission considers the project as the step forward, but it thinks that some issues are still to be regulated.

Mainly, it is difficult to express distrust to the power from the parliament’s side depending on the changes in the constitution. The question can be set up by the less members of the parliament. Though, if the parliament can not assign a new Prime Minister, for whom more votes are needed than for starting up distrust issues, the President can dissolve the parliament. The experts regard this article as inactive one and they say that the parliament will always avoid starting the process of distrust declaration to the government in fear of dissolution. Also the view is popped up on the mentioned issue that “ National Movement” creates more guarantees for the future, because if they can manage to win their own candidacy while the Parliamentary meeting, their chosen government will have no more problems after the disintegration of the majority and/or the party. But in the parliamentary majority, this decision was explained by retaining stability of the country and as they denote if distrust process is simple it will cause frequent changes of the government in the country and it will only do the country harm. The second main note of Venice commission regards to assignment of judges for a probation period, though, this note is not foreseen either. In the parliamentary majority, they say that the state constitutional commission has been in active and fruitful relations with Venice commission for a year and a lot of remarks have been taken into consideration, though, Georgia is not obliged to introduce everything by” copy /paste” by anyone. 

According to a new version, newly formed balance is being set up among the power branches. The presidential institute has weakened significantly compared with the current one. The major part of its power shifted to Prime minister and authority. The President essentially appears as an arbiter among the branches. Also the role of the parliament strengthened to the relations of government recruitment, though, also the experts and parliamentary opposition doubt in the strength of future parliament. The part of constitutional changes will come into force on the 15th day from the publication day, the other part from January 2011. In addition, new relations issues among state branches will take effect after 2013 presidential elections. Before the voting of constitutional changes the information was spread about the parliament’s possible postponement of the voting day and of consideration of recommendations of Venice commission, but it did not happen so. President Saakashvili reckons that the Georgian parliament took the right decision when he put the project of constitutional changes off to be passed. As he stated to the journalists, no one charged the power to postpone passing the constitutional changes, but it was done, because the power opposition had no more arguments against the authority. “ Many people thought that changes were fit to directly President, but everything was done reasonably. We still waited for the conclusion of Venice commission. Only one remark was not shared, which was related to reduce of the rights of the President, but you know that those changes were not recognized owing to Georgian reality. In the future, the government will be recruited by not individual President but the parliament elected by people.” said Saakashvili. In president’s words, this fact will make the government’s work very hard, but it is the right model of the country development.

“ Georgia suffered a lot and now time should not be wasted on senseless discussion. We call everyone to for giving us time to work if we want to live in a normal country. We suffered a lot and please let us give some time for working. When there are so many social, economic problems, I do not think we should waste time on talking a lot of rubbish” - says Saakashvili. As the head of Parliament, David Bakradze claim, Venice commission has already published the final conclusion on constitutional changes of the project and this conclusion is absolutely positive. In his words, the final conclusion of Venice commission is the same as the opinions published by the same commission last Friday where the project of constitutional changes was assessed positively. The head of Parliament positively valued the fact that before the final passing the constitutional changes of the project, a positive conclusion of Venice commission had already been known. In spite of such attitude, a new constitution was criticized by a member of parliamentary majority. 

As Tamaz Diasamidze says, the constitution of the new version passed by the parliament does not meet the requirements with future development and stability of the country. This is how the deputy explains his own decision about voting against the constitution, though, while talking with ”pirveli” Diasamidze restrained from making deeper assessments and additional explanations about his own opinions. “ This is the constitution that does not meet the current demands of future development and stability of Georgia. “This is the reason for which I do not support this constitution”, - said Tamaz Diasamidze to “Pirweli”. 

We will remind you that Diasamidze joined the ranks of those opposition deputies of the parliament who vote against the constitutional project. Diasamidze took part in the voting procedure of the constitutional project before now, but he did not vote for the constitutional project. But on yesterday’s final voting day the deputy made a decision of voting against the project. As for the directly parliamentary opposition, its part did not share the delight of the power about passing the constitutional changes of the project. In their words, the authority lies when it says that the was project adopted after publication of the conclusion of Venice commission. Representatives of parliamentary opposition, Jondi Baghaturia, Dimitri Lortkipanidze and Gia Tsagareishvili made statements about it on the session while voting for constitutional changes of the project. “My colleagues inspiration is surprising about the conclusion of Venice commission that was completed for the third hearing. If it happened so, nothing changes for the third hearing, and also I wonder where this conclusion is published”, - said Baghaturia. 

Lortkipanidze also asked the same question to Bakradze and noted that he could not find the mentioned conclusion on Venice commission webpage till then. Bakradze said that he could not take any responsibility about the publication of the conclusion, though, he could take responsibility about the fact that the meeting of Venice commission had already been held that morning and the conclusion really existed. 

Dimitri Lortkipanidze says that it is too early to talk about the a positive assessment 
of the project on constitutional alterations by Venice commission before a conclusion is published.  

“While meeting with the members of Venice commission delegation, it was said that the remarks were reflected in relations with law-court and those notes which should be reflected in the conclusion, does not give us opportunity to assess the project positively in whole”, he said.

Tsagareishvili remembers the processes of adopting constitutional changes of 2004 and notes that the changes had been made by the same pathetic speeches that brought the country to terrible results. “Pathos is provoked by only a single political party approving the project and you want to present it as it is accepted by everybody. Unfortunately this is not true and I wish we would reach a consensus”, - siad Tsagareishvili.