U.S. Ambassador raised today concerns about the recent initiative of the Georgian Dream to dissolve the State Inspector’s Service.

In her media remarks after the meeting at State Inspector’s Service today afternoon, Kelly Degnan called on the Parliament to pause and slow down “a strange process rushing through legislation when there’s no need to rush it through.”

“Parliament has the oversight responsibility of the State Inspector’s service, and yet when the State Inspector submitted their report of their annual activities, there were no questions raised by the legislature. There were no complaints raised by Parliament, so it’s very difficult to understand why it would be necessary to break with precedent and basically dismiss all of the qualified employees of this service by March - a real loss of talent and experience, and capability in one of the most important independent agencies that the country has.

So again, it was a strange process rushing through legislation when there’s no need to rush it through. There was a lack of consultation, even with the State Inspector herself and her staff, and, there were very troubling provisions included within this legislation. Again, our request would be for parliament to pause this process, to slow this process down. There is no need to rush it through this week: push it to the next legislature and have a proper, inclusive, transparent consultation with stakeholders and develop an approach that is really, truly improving the State Inspector’s service. That would be our recommendation. That would be our strong request of parliament”, - said the Ambassador.