EU Ambassador to Georgia Carl Hartzell on Monday remarked on the State Inspector’s Office, saying “a fundamental institution for providing checks and balances needs to be treated with utmost care and transparency, which was something we did not see at the end of last year.”

Carl Hartzell stressed it is “concerning to us because it is absolutely fundamental that institution [State Inspector’s Office] like this one is able to function properly.”

“It is also the institution where the European Union invested quite a lot of effort and finance to help build up over the years. This is not only a concern of the EU, similar concerns have been expressed by the US, by the United Nations, by the Council of Europe.

And later today, I understand that we will also have the opinion coming from OSCE, ODIHR, and other key institutions when it comes to setting the European, or following the European rules with regard to democracy,” EU Ambassador stated.

Ruling team MPs tabled a new bill replacing the State Inspector’s Service with Special Investigation and Personal Data Protection services. According to the bill, the Special Investigation Service will probe the offences committed by the authorities, while the Personal Data Protection Service will be responsible for monitoring personal data procession.