S t a t e m e n t
The Georgian Trade Unions Confederation considers the planned amendments to the Georgian Law on Civil Service, which is being discussed in an accelerated manner in the Parliament, to be disturbing and unacceptable.
We believe that the draft significantly undermines the existing guarantees of protection for public servants, contradicts international labour standards, the Association Agreement with the European Union, the Constitution of Georgia,
national legislation, and the established practice of the Constitutional and General Courts of Georgia.
The involvement of the Georgian Trade Unions Confederation, the most representative worker organization in the country, was ignored in the process of preparing the draft law. Georgia is a member state of the International Labour Organization and has ratified the ILO Convention No. 144 on “Tripartite Consultations for the Promotion of the Implementation of International Labour Standards” since 2018, which obliges member states to ensure effective consultations with employers’ associations and trade unions on labour issues.
In accordance with the ILO standards, the Organic Law of Georgia the Labour Code contains norms (Articles 82-84), according to which it is mandatory to discuss labour issues in the format of a tripartite commission, which has not happened. It should be emphasized that the proposed project contradicts the Association Agreement of Georgia with the European Union, which obliges Georgia to uphold fundamental labour standards and ensure continuous improvement of guarantees for the protection of labour rights. It is thanks to the European integration process, in accordance with the obligations assumed under the Association Agreement, that a civil service reform was carried out in 2015, one of the goals of which was to create a stable and decent work environment for civil servants.
According to the draft law, prepared in complete disregard of international and national standards:
Reorganization will be given a broad interpretation and practically everything, except for the subordination of the institution and the change of its name, will be declared as reorganization. Among them, the basis for reorganization may be the addition of a new function for each employee in a structural unit or the change of existing functions.
In addition, if during the reorganization a new function is added to an employee or existing functions are changed, or structural units are merged or staff are reduced, each official will be dismissed and a competition will be announced. In addition, the draft law allows for the employment of a person
from outside the public system in any position as a result of a competition in this process, thus ignoring the principle of ranking.
The reorganization period is reduced from 3 months to 2 months, and employees dismissed as a result of the reorganization will no longer be subject to mobility.
Appealing decisions on dismissal from service does not suspend the adopted acts. And the satisfaction of the request by a court decision does not lead to the reinstatement of the illegally dismissed person. In case of winning the dispute, the dismissed official will be given compensation in the amount of only 3 months of official salary.
This contradicts the already established practice of the Constitutional Court (31/07/2015 No. 2/3/630), which declared unconstitutional a similar provision in the Law on Civil Service, according to which an illegally dismissed civil servant could receive compensation for the suspension period in the amount of no more than 3 months of official salary.
In addition to the above, the draft law grants the head of a public institution the authority to change the evaluation prepared by the immediate supervisor of an employee within 3 months of this evaluation. The evaluation also determines, among other things, the employee’s grade and grade increment. In addition, receiving a negative evaluation twice may result in dismissal of the employee.
We believe that there is no argument that would justify making such decisions, especially in an expedited manner. We believe that such steps will further aggravate the already difficult situation in the country and will jeopardize the realization of not only labour rights, but also a wide range of rights guaranteed by the Constitution.