Salome Lemonjava

What’s democracy?

What’s necessary for country’s democratic development?

What’s the quality of Georgian democracy?

What are perspectives to Georgia’s democratic development?

These questions are always on the top of the list. Answers to those questions remain very popular subject of discussion. In this case common phrases stand out, such as: freedom of speech, independent media, freedom of choice, society involvement in the process and etc.  In addition to that we have equality of race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation.

According to there search done by the international human rights organization “Freedom House” in 2016, the level of democracy has improved by 4.61 points in comparison to the last year’s results. One of the reasons for improvement involves improvement in the judicial system. Georgia is considered as semi consolidated democratic country according to the general data service, which proves that we no longer belong to the list of developing countries. That’s a step towards positive direction.

According to the research done by “Freedom House”, positive steps are taken in the field of the freedom of media as well. Georgia belongs to partially free countries with 49 points on the scale of 0 to 100, 0 being the best and 100 the worst. It’s worth mentioning that Georgia is the only one keeping this status in Southern Caucasus.

If we continue speaking about arguments and evidential documents in order to support all of the above-mentioned, we have to state that Georgian government and parliament have set a comprehensive strategic plan for human rights – “human rights national strategy 2014-2020”, action plan has been set in motion, where more attention is drawn to gender identification matters and sexual orientation issues are emphasized.

Answer to the question how Georgia has improved not only one, but also several statistic data is simple. Feeling of protest appeared in people, public unions became more active; civil sectors strengthened. Nowadays, everybody can go in the streets and stand in front of the parliament building holding posters with following slogans: “Say no to violence”, “It concerns you, they’re still eavesdropping on us”, “Homosexuality isn’t a disease”… Constant collaboration in various directions with international organizations is the subject, which should be mentioned as well.

The fact is that our country has undergone major transformation during these last few years, however, we, Georgian citizens still face numerous challenges ahead of us. In terms of the level of democracy, there are still issues that need improvement. For instance, we need to replace semi free media to independent media and instead of competing against Southern Caucasian countries, we need to keep up with Western European countries; we need to maintain complete gender equality; we need to strength then civil sector. It’s not only important but also necessary for every citizen to fully comprehend the concept of human rights and importance of it. When we’re fully aware of the expression, “My rights ends when others rights are violated”, that’s when the problems become easier to solve and consequently reflect on the results of any research, index or statistic data.

The outcome  – quite satisfactory.

Salome Lemonjava

Read this article in Georgian here.

The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of the author, and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of ALDA and the European Union.