The Regulation of Lobbying – Law of Georgia on Lobbying

Abstract

In the last two decades, lobbying has become Europe's generally approved political activity. Even though the profession itself continues to carry a mark of 'shadiness,' lobbyists are now an acknowledged part of liberal democratic political systems. However, if lobbyists are to be perceived as a genuinely legitimate part of the government process, they also need to be regulated, as other parts of democratic government are. Lobbying needs to be transparent, first, in order not to enlarge the space for corruption of public officials; second, not to erode public sureness in the system; and third, to keep the playing field level and fair for all. It is particularly true in post-communist East Central Europe, where further development toward fully-fledged liberal democracy is uncertain. Georgia was one of the first countries in Europe to adopt a particular act regulating lobbying activities – "Law of Georgia on Lobbying" -in 1998 during the presidency of Eduard Shevardnadze. The referred law was one of the first unified acts regulating lobbying in the legal systems of the former Post-Soviet and of all European countries. The first worldwide regulation of lobbying activities started in the USA in 1946. Germany began to develop lobbying ethics in 1951, and Canada started the referred process in 1989. However, several European countries have composed all other laws on lobbying and various regulatory documents since 2000. The experience of Georgia in this field is reviewed in the current report based on the existing literature regarding the regulation of lobbying activities in Europe and the United States/Canada. Our research question is whether the Law of Georgia on Lobbying really works and whether it is effective. The purpose of the report is to show the ways of regulating lobbying in Georgia and the effectiveness of the law on lobbying as well. The regulation of lobbying in Georgia is relevant but ineffective. At first sight, stages determining the lobbying process are prescribed rather accurately in the law regulating lobbying activities, such as procedures for registration as a lobbyist, refusal to register, termination and withdrawal of the legal status of a lobbyist, rights, and obligations of a lobbyist and legal guarantees of activity, report of a lobbyist. Despite the points mentioned above, the law does not work in actual practice, as the problem of the "revolving door" is widespread in Georgia, allowing interested parties to circumvent the law and pursue their interests in the relevant instances. Furthermore, information quality regarding the referred legislation within the population is relatively low; only one person is registered as a lobbyist in the Parliament of Georgia, who carries out lobbying activities in compliance with this legislation. The document regulating lobbying activities is assessed using the CPI method in the current report. In our case, each element of the lobbying law is evaluated through the aforementioned method. According to the CPI index (CHARI, R.; HOGAN, J., MURPHY, G. Report on The Legal Framework for the Regulation of Lobbying in the Council of Europe Member States), 12 elements of lobbying regulation have been identified: 1) definitions of lobbying and/or a lobbyist; 2) registration; 3) additional measures to ensure transparency, i.e., disclosure requirements; 4) accessibility (lobbyist rights); 5) legal norms of conduct/ethics for lobbyists; 6) legal norms of conduct/ethics for public authorities; 7) permanent/institutionalized forms of cooperation between lobbyists and public authorities; 8) purposes of regulation; 9) a mechanism for providing and publishing the required information; 10) restrictions on lobbying; 11) enforcement mechanism; 12) mechanism of responsibility for regulatory breaches. We used these 12 characteristics during the study of "Law of Georgia on Lobbying" to determine the compliance of each paragraph of the latter with the norms defined by this index. According to the results of the study, "Law of Georgia on Lobbying" can be considered as a medium-regulated system. However, the referred legal act does not fully meet all the norms characteristic of this system. However, some cases directly characteristic of highly regulated systems are also observed in it.