“The Amnesty Bill will be submitted to the Bureau on July 15, and the parliament will begin to discuss it next week in the committees,” said Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili.
According to the Speaker, the bill will be approved with the first reading at the extraordinary session next week and finally be adopted at the fall session.
The Speaker thanked Rati Ionatamishvili, the parliamentary majority member and the Human Rights Protection and Civil Integration Committee chairperson, the government and the Prosecutor’s Office for introducing the bill.
“This is a balanced amnesty bill, which will be the first step toward the statement that the PM has made during his annual report, and this is the wish of our political team to reduce the number of inmates in prisons. We aim to reduce the number of prisoners by 1/3. This amnesty envisages the immediate release of 10% of prisoners and others in certain forms, such as reducing prison terms by 1/2, 1/4, or 1/6. The amnesty will comprise approximately 300 articles,” he said.
The ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party introduced the Amnesty Bill on July 11.