We need to necessarily disclose the questions by the Public Defender to clarify the information serving as the basis for the OSCE/ODIHR to make the conclusions on the modifications to the State Inspector Service. The Chair of the Legal Issues Committee responded to the OSCE/ODIHR opinion of February 18, 2022, concerning the legal changes on the State Inspector Service adopted in December 2021.

Deriving that the OSCE/ODIHR opinion fails to discuss the key issues about the compatibility of the control function on the lawfulness of the procession of the investigative and personal data by one sole state agency, the suspicions arise that such contextual information was not at all provided to OSCE/ODIHR to make it see the impartial picture.

“It means that no basic issue was raised to OSCE/ODIHR about the compatibility of the investigation and personal data protection and the practice of similar model in the EU countries. OSCE/ODIHR was provided with misleading or incomplete information with legal inaccuracies.

The OSCE/ODIHR opinion provides that allegedly the quorum for the election of the officials of the newly established two new services has been reduced, which is not the truth and can be easily verified in the Rules of Procedure. The opinion also provides that allegedly the Parliamentary oversight mechanisms have been annulled towards these persons, which also is far from the reality pursuant to the Rules of Procedure”, - said Anri Okhanashvili.

According to him, the opinion states that the provision of the impartiality of the Special Investigation Service requires non-appointment of the persons with excessive experience in the police and/or defense agencies on the top positions.

“Thus, we see that OSCE/ODIHR puts the legitimation of the incumbent administration of the State Inspector Service under question deriving from the experience of these persons. We would like to know whether OSCE/ODIHR was at all provided with information that the current administration of the State Inspector Service was eligible to uninterruptedly participated in the new competition but they refused to use this opportunity. I hope, the Public Defender will be guided with the transparency principle and disclose the questions sent to OSCE/ODIHR to allow our society make accurate and objective conclusions”, - he added.