The Council of Europe and the Public Defender’s Office of Georgia organised online conference “Convention on Access to Official Documents (Tromsø Convention): Georgian perspective”. The purpose of the conference was to introduce the Tromsø Convention and its monitoring mechanism to Georgian stakeholders and assess the relevance of its potential ratification.

The online meeting, which was opened by the Public Defender of Georgia, Nino Lomjaria and the Deputy Head of the Council of Europe Office in Georgia, Vahagn Muradyan, gathered stakeholders from government and civil society organisations.

The Council of Europe expert presented background information on the Tromsø Convention, main requirements of the latter and examples of its implementation in ratifying countries. Representatives of Public Defender’s Office and civil society organisations described local landscape in the view of access to official documents, existing challenges for media and discussed potential impact Tromsø Convention, in case Georgian authorities decide to ratify it.

The Council of Europe will follow-up on the conclusions of the conference and continue facilitation of further discussions concerning the topic of access to information in Georgia. 

The online conference was organised in the framework of the Project "Strengthening Freedom of Media, Internet Governance and Personal Data Protection” SMIP-GE, funded by the Council of Europe Action Plan for Georgia 2020-2023