Zourabichvili refuses to sign Georgian queer propaganda law

Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili has refused to sign the queer propaganda law passed by parliament, nor has she used her presidential powers to veto it.

On Wednesday, the presidential administration confirmed to OC Media that the president did not sign the law ‘on protection of family values and minors’. The legislation, passed by parliament on 17 September, would be far-ranging, affecting education, healthcare, media, business, and public gatherings, and would demonstratively prohibit a number of rights still currently unavailable to queer people in Georgia.

[Read more: Explainer | What’s in Georgia’s new anti-queer bill?]

The president’s administration stated that the unsigned law, which was adopted by the parliament despite criticism from civil society organisations and partner countries, had already been sent back to parliament.

It will now be up to the speaker of parliament to sign it instead. The law would then come into effect 60 days later, which in this case, would be after the 26 October elections.

Why the president did not veto the law

President Zourabichvili has wielded her veto increasingly frequently against legislation passed by the ruling Georgian Dream party, including the recently adopted foreign agent law. Parliament has the power to overcome her veto.

Her decision not to veto the latest legislation resulted in questions by some as to the reasoning behind this. The president’s administration declined to specify why Zourabichvili had not done so, telling OC Media that ‘no announcement or clarification’ was planned.

While the bill was being reviewed during its third reading in September, many in civil society actively called on the President to veto the anti-queer legislation if passed.

Tamta Mikeladze, the head of local human rights group Social Justice Centre, suggested that Zourabichvili did not veto the bill because such an action would give parliament the opportunity to meet in an extraordinary session to adopt the law. She noted that in any case, the ruling Georgian Dream party would not have had a problem overcoming the president’s veto.

‘The president once again did not give parliament the opportunity to use homophobia politically and pass this law triumphantly’, Mikeladze told OC Media.

‘Georgian Dream tries to use the opportunity in every space to present itself as a defender of families and children, which in principle is political hypocrisy, especially when in our country we are talking about a sharply deteriorating demography, declining birth rates, high migration and family breakup, or very high poverty, as well as problems of access to vital social and material needs for children’.

Mikeladze pointed out that Zourabichvili had previously made several statements where she said that  the ‘anti-queer law, as an anti-European and anti-democratic law, should be changed in the future in order for Georgia to be able to fulfil the recommendations of the European Union and resume the suspended European integration process’.

In addition to speaking out against Georgian Dream’s ‘LGBT propaganda’ law, Zourabichvili in September attended the funeral of Kesaria Abramidze, a prominent trans media personality and model who was murdered the day after the legislation was passed in parliament.

Georgian constitutional scholar Vakhushti Menabde pointed out in a post on Facebook that ‘when the president does not sign a law, it is a greater rejection of that law than a veto’.

He explained that the purpose of a veto is to introduce changes to the law in question to parliament in such a way as to ‘correct the flaws’ in the legislation, which would make it acceptable.

‘When the president does not veto a law or sign it, she is saying two things: the law is not subject to correction; I have a moral objection to this law, so I don’t want to sign it’.

Tbilisi Pride’s director Tamar Jakeli, suggested in a Facebook post that Georgian Dream would have demonstratively overcome the President’s veto with an extraordinary session, days before the parliamentary elections.

‘With this decision, the space for spreading ugly propagandistic narratives has been taken away’, she said. ‘This is how I see it pragmatically, otherwise as a member of the community, I would have liked [her] to veto [it]’.

Georgian opposition and civil society groups have repeatedly accused Georgian Dream of weaponising such legislation for electoral purposes ahead of the 26 October parliamentary elections.