Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili held a working meeting with Justice Minister Rati Bregadze and his Deputy Ministers.

The Justice Ministry’s plans for 2023 were discussed at the meeting. The Head of Government was briefed by the Justice Ministry’s senior management on all activities planned by the Ministry for implementation this year. It was pointed out at the meeting that three key directions: protection of human rights, ensuring the country’s legal security, and affordable services for citizens remain the Justice Ministry’s priorities.

In terms of state services, special attention was paid to such projects launched in 2022 as systemic land registration and systemic addressing.

Under systemic land registration, the state, based on a preliminarily developed plan/timetable, will measure and register land lots free of charge for citizens in 59 municipalities. Since the launch of the project, 187,720 parcels of land (57, 151.26 hectares) have been measured within the scope of fieldworks, also 95, 617 parcels of land (39,420.6 hectares) have been registered under systemic registration, and 15,833 parcels of land (4,902 hectares) have been registered under sporadic registration.

Systemic registration will be finalized at the end of 2024. As a result of this project, not only previously unregistered parcels of land will be registered, but overlaps/overlays in land lots registered years ago will also be corrected, owners will be identified, parcel boundaries will be determined, disputes will be reduced/prevented, and registered immovable properties will be used in economic circulation.

Systemic addressing will be finalized in 2024. Under the project, 78% of previously unaddressed settlements will be assigned addresses across the country, namely street formation, assigning numbers of all immovable assets, and assigning addresses to immovable assets in the Register of Rights. The unified electronic database of addresses will be provided to relevant organizations (police, emergency services, postal services, and others). In addition, the boundaries of municipalities and settlements will be specified.

At the meeting, the Prime Minister was also briefed on the implementation of the 2022-2025 Service Development Strategy approved by the Government in 2022. The strategy envisages the development of a unified standard of the creation, delivery, quality assurance, and pricing of state services, and the subsequent delivery of state services to the population in line with this unified standard. Various agencies are actively cooperating on the introduction of the strategy, and it is planned for seven select state agencies to be guided by the unified standard in the service delivery component at the end of this year.

During the conversation, measures carried out by the Ministry of Justice in relation to the implementation of the new Law on Entrepreneurs were underlined. The Ministry of Justice has adopted a service fitting in with the new law, and is holding an active awareness campaign to help entrepreneurs fulfil their obligations imposed by the law, which implies bringing the data registered by the end of 2023 in concordance with the new law.

The Prime Minister was also provided with a report on enhancing access to notary services. In 2022, the age limit for serving as a notary was increased, also the number of notaries grew, and so did the geographic area of notary bureaus. As for innovations in this direction, it is planned to strengthen cooperation within the scope of the memorandum signed with Germany, also to introduce notary retraining courses, cooperation with research centers, and others.

It was emphasized at the meeting that the Ministry of Justice plans to switch to higher-quality next-generation identification documents in the nearest future, in this way meeting the highest modern standards of security. A new digital signature, so-called Mobile ID, will be introduced, and the digital public service hall application will be launched.

The conversation touched on the construction of public service halls. In 2023, new public service halls will open in Zestaponi, Samtredia, Akhmeta, and Khashuri. Construction work will commence in Khelvachauri, Tsaishi, Tolebi, Zoti, Sachkhere, Shrosha, Mtskheta, Sagarejo, Gldani. The scope of mobile public service halls will expand, their number will increase to twenty, and this innovative service will be available in every region of Georgia.

In 2023, the Ministry of Justice will continue introducing innovative services, including new projects by the Public Service Hall: Personal Assistant, Smart Self-Serve Space, and Artificial Intelligence in Telephone Services. It is planned to open the Hologram Museum of Law. Projects for Electronic Assistant and a rent/lease agreement monitoring system will be introduced in the National Bureau of Enforcement.

The management of the Ministry of Justice pointed our that, compared to 2020, the budget of the Ministry of Justice has in fact doubled. For example, if it made up 389,626,000 GEL (budget: 238,813,000 GEL, own: 150,813,000 GEL) in 2020, it is now 758,800,000 GEL (budget: 392,400,000 GEL, own: 366,400,000 GEL) in 2023. The Minister and Deputy Ministers of Justice thanked the Prime Minister for this support.

Conversation touched on the probation system, with emphasis on implemented reforms with PROBBOX as their most important segment. The Confederation of European Probation, in its article, praised PROBOX as a European-scale innovation. At the working meeting, the draft Probation Code was discussed, which, similar to the Penitentiary Code, will offer a series of innovations and benefits to probation system employees, probationers, and other beneficiaries of the LEPL. Emphasis was placed on the newly introduced electronic case management system for convicts with suspended sentences and ex-convicts that plays a crucial role in the streamlined and fast operation of the LEPL.