Georgia: At the sitting of the Committee on Human Rights and Civil Integration, the amendment to the “Code of Administrative Offenses of Georgia” was discussed, which is aimed at protecting green plants within the administrative boundaries of Tbilisi Municipality.
As one of the initiators, Beka Davituliani, noted, despite the existing regulations, in practice, cases of damage or cutting of green plants occur very often.
Therefore, increasing the fines is one of the most important mechanisms that should ensure the main goal of the regulation – to protect green plants and reduce the impact on them illegally.
Damage to green plants, arbitrary cutting and/or relocation, and violation of the rules of maintenance of green plants will result in a fine of 5000 GEL instead of 500 GEL, and the same action will result in a fine of 10000 GEL instead of 1000 GEL.
“In terms of protecting green plants in the capital, it is also important to consider the fact that experts gave wrong conclusions as an administrative offence, which will be a major lever for experts to stop submitting documents tailored to the project proposal and trying to mislead the authority, ” David said.
He said the passage of the bill would be a kind of prevention and a signal to potential offenders not to commit the relevant offences as they would now be subject to tougher sanctions. The committee supported the submission of the bill to the plenary session.