The Act of Independence of Georgia – The European Choice of Georgia

Abstract

With the adoption of the Act of Independence of May 26, 1918, Georgia not only restored its state independence, but also made its civilizational choice. The Act of Independence stated those values that should lay the foundations for the newly created Georgian state. Georgia made a clear dividing line with the Bolshevik dictatorship and embarked on a way of building the democratic state.  The paper discusses the values stated in the Act of Independence – state sovereignity; state order – democratic republic; territorial integrity; friendly relations with other states and with the neighborhing satets, and nations in particular; protecting the rights of citizes and that of national minroties. The paper demonstates that the basic principles of the Act of Indepencene were transferred into the 1921 Constitution as separate articles; the special attention was devoted to the preservation of the rights of citizens, streamlined through the article  55. It comprises 1/3 of the entire Constitution, running 149 articles altogether. The enshrined principle of neutrality of Georgia through the Act of Independence, explicitly stating that Georgia maintains firm neutrality duing the international wars, did not provide security of Georgia, thus this clause was not transferred into the 1921 Constitution. The Democratic Republic of Georgia tried to ensure its security through the membership in the League of Nations. The adoption of the Act of Independence is a remarkable achievement in the history of a nation/country and it lays the foundations for the newly created state. Georgia declared its independence twice in the 20th century: on May 26, 1918 and on April 9, 1991. These two documents, with their stated goals, are tightly intertwined. The analysis of the main clauses of the Act of Independence of Georgia (1918) and the Act of Restoration of State Independence of Georgia (1991) demonstrates that the document of April 9, 1991 shares with the main principles stated in the Act of Independence of May 26, 1918 and adds one important principle on top of those: the supremacy of the international law; that was an important additional at the times of departure from authoritarianism and embarking on the way of democratic state-building.   (The research was carried out within the framework of the Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia Grant Project “The Beginning of the Contemporary Georgian Parliamentarianism: The National Council of Georgia-The Parliament of Georgia”. Grant Code: FR-23-2950)