According to the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament, a Member of Parliament’s absence from the entire plenary session due to a political boycott shall be deemed an unjustified absence.

This amendment has been added to the Rules of Procedure and was reviewed during the first reading at Friday’s Committee on Procedural Issues session. The changes stipulate that a boycott may be declared not concerning an entire plenary session but rather a specific agenda item.

Specifically, a Member of Parliament will not be considered to have missed a plenary session for unjustified reasons if a faction or a non-faction member chooses not to participate in the discussion and resolution of a certain agenda item due to their political views. A member must formally communicate their intention to boycott, either in writing or orally, to the Speaker of Parliament during the session. The boycott statement must clearly indicate the specific agenda item that is subject to the boycott.

In presenting this issue at the committee session, Speaker of Parliament Shalva Papuashvili noted that parliamentary practice has shown that some parliamentary members often exploit the boycott mechanism in bad faith to avoid being seen as disrespectful for their absence during plenary sessions.