The Legal Issues Committee discussed with the I reading the Draft Code of Administrative Offenses, modifying the liability imposed for driving or entrusting the vehicle without the periodic technical inspection certificate.

As the Draft envisages, if the driver once sanctioned for the failure to pass the technical inspection or entrusting of a vehicle without the technical inspection repeats the same offense within the term of 30 days upon sanctioning shall be subject to the penalty of:

• 150 GEL for natural persons;
• 300 GEL for legal entities and/or individual entrepreneurs.

Pursuant to the same principle, the recurrence of the hereof offense shall entail:

• 300 GEL for natural persons;
• 500 GEL for legal entities and/or individual entrepreneurs.

Every upcoming offense within 30 days upon the hereof sanctioning shall entail:

• 500 GEL for natural persons;
• 700 GEL for legal entities and/or individual entrepreneurs.

According to the reporter, the Chair of the Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Committee, Maia Bitadze, inasmuch as the hereof offenses are mostly revealed by means of the surveillance cams and the delivery of the penalty takes a certain time, the Draft offers 6 months instead of 2 months for the imposition of the reprimand, which is purposed to ensure uninterrupted processing by the Interior Ministry.

“The Working Group at the Committee aims at the mitigation of the emission of hazardous substances and facilitation of eco-friendly transports. The Group revealed sundry issues impeding the effectiveness of the technical inspection system, namely, the legislation fails to provide repeated sanctioning for the absence of the technical inspection certificate. Pursuant to the current Law, the hereof offense is subject to the penalty of 50 GEL. The observations for 2019-2022 revealed the reduced inflow to the TI Centers, while the penalties imposed by the Interior Ministry have been increased three times. If the amount of penalties in 2019 constituted 235 000 GEL, in 2022 this figure achieved 700 000 GEL, which directly indicates that the drivers prefer to pay 50 GEL as a single-time penalty than replace the malfunctioning parts that pose threat to safe transportation of the passengers; and the increased such cases entail the air pollution”, - she elucidated.