The Expert Council on NGO Law, an expert body of the Conference of INGOs of the Council of Europe, has just published an opinion on the Foreign Agents Registration Act adopted by the Parliament of Georgia on 1 April 2025.  It finds that several of the provisions are not sufficiently prescribed by the law as required when imposing restrictions on fundamental rights and freedoms and that there must be serious doubts as to whether the adoption of at least some of them has a legitimate aim under European standards. Furthermore, the Opinion considers that the measures contained in the Act are not ones that can be considered necessary in a democratic society, having regard to:

• the inevitable effect of the Act’s provisions in precluding NGOs from seeking access to foreign support for the pursuit of objectives entirely consistent with European standards,
• the excessive obligations to disclose personal data,
• the unrestricted scope of the demands for supplementary information that can be made,
• the burdensome record-keeping required and
• the excessive nature of the penalties that can be imposed. 

In the circumstances, the Opinion concludes that the implementation of the Act will cause grave and unjustified damage to civil society in Georgia, will be inconsistent with a wide range of commitments that this member state of the Council of Europe has undertaken and that the Act will thus be entirely inappropriate. As a result, it finds that it would be appropriate to repeal the Act and to desist from any steps to enforce the implementation of its provisions.

  Links to the Opinion :  In English / In French / In Georgian

  Further information and reports of the Expert Council.