Public Defender of Georgia, Levan Ioseliani calls on the Central Election Commission (CEC) to allow Georgian citizens registered in occupied territories of Georgia to vote in elections

“In recent days, the Public Defender of Georgia has learnt that Georgian citizens registered in the occupied territories, who are abroad and do not have their factual place of residence in Georgia indicated in the IDP database, are not given the opportunity to reflect their data in the unified electoral list and accordingly, to vote in the October elections.

It is also reported that Georgian citizens displaced from Abkhazia are asked to change their place of registration in order to participate in the elections, which means that their address in the occupied territory of Georgia will no longer be indicated as their place of registration,” reads the Ombudsman’s statement.

According to Levan Ioseliani, the technical issue of registration should not become a basis for “restricting their right to participate in the elections guaranteed by the Constitution, especially when these elections are general and not local self-government elections.”

“As a result of studying the issue, the Public Defender believes that maintaining a permanent place of residence in the occupied territory for a person forcibly displaced from the occupied territories has both legal and political importance, therefore, such persons do not want to change their permanent address. At the same time, the Public Defender emphasizes that the technical issue of registration should not become a basis for restricting their right to participate in the elections guaranteed by the Constitution, especially when these elections are general and not local self-government elections.

Accordingly, the Public Defender of Georgia calls on the Central Election Commission of Georgia, within its discretionary authority, on the basis of the human rights-based approach and the systemic interpretation of norms, to use all the possibilities available to it and enter the data of these persons into the unified electoral list,” he said.