The Committee discussed with the I reading the Draft Law on Registration of Foreign Agents and the Draft Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence.

The Draft Law on Registration of Foreign Agents stipulates the concept of the agent of foreign forces and regulates the registration of the respective subjects as foreign agents, and other issues related to transparency of their activity; the Draft does not restrict ordinary activity for the subjects registered as foreign agents.

According to one of the authors, Guram Macharashvili, the Draft prescribes information that shall be submitted by the respective subjects in the application addressed to the Prosecutor General on registration as a foreign agent, however, the Prosecutor General holds the right to determine the list of other documents and information to be included in the application.

The Draft is initiated by MPs Sozar Subari, Dimitri Khundadze, Mikheil Kavelashvili, Guram Macharashvili, Irakli (Dachi) Beraia and Victor Japaridze.

The Draft on Transparency of Foreign Influence regulates the issues as follows:

Terms of foreign influence agent and foreign forces;
- Registration of a subject as a foreign influence agent;
- Publicity of the register of the foreign influence agents and annual financial declaration of the respective subjects;
- Monitoring for the identification of a foreign influence agent or inspection of the fulfillment of the requirements envisaged under the Draft;
- Administrative liability for the evasion from the registration as a foreign influence agent or non-fulfillment of the requirements envisaged under the Draft.

At that, the Draft does not restrict ordinary activity for the subjects registered as foreign influence agents. According to Guram Macharashvili, the Draft, unlike the first Draft, does not apply to natural persons.

“This Draft does not also apply to all legal entities, only the non-commercial legal entities and media means funded by the foreign forces, over 20% of them. Besides, unlike the first Draft, which envisages the submission of a vast list of the documents for registration and entitles the Prosecutor General to request the additional list, the hereof Draft envisages three criteria solely for the registration of a subject: the source of financing, objectives, activity and the financial statement once per annum. Under this Draft, we do not want to estimate any of the activities as bad or good. We want our society to see the financial transparency of all NGOs – the source of their financing – and make a decision on which of them are good or bad. This Draft results in the informed citizens”, - he noted.

The Draft is initiated by MPs Sozar Subari, Mikheil Kavelashvili, Dimitri Khundadze, Guram Macharashvili, Victor Japaridze, Irakli (Dachi) Beraia, Eka Sepashvili, David Kacharava and Zaal Mikeladze.

The Committee approved both Drafts.