A recent law passed by Georgian lawmakers has stoked fears across the LGBTQI+ community and heightened concerns about shrinking civic space ahead of the country’s parliamentary election later in October. 

In September, legislators voted to approve the wide-ranging ‘family values’ bill, which prohibits same-sex marriages, adoptions by same-sex couples and gender-affirming treatments. 

There are already fears that the ‘family values’ law will lead to similarly devastating restrictions in Georgia. ‘It’s a law [bringing] censorship because it targets everyone within the sciences, within academia, within the media and within activism,’ says Tamar Oniani, Human Rights Programme Director and Deputy Chairperson at the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA), one of the country’s leading human rights watchdogs. ‘If the issues are related to the LGBTQI+ community then you can be sanctioned first administratively and then on the grounds of criminal liability.’

Oniani is particularly concerned about the law’s impact on Georgia’s trans community. ‘The most drastic part for me is the prohibition [relating to] trans health issues,’ she says. ‘It prohibits any kind of hormonal therapy, which could be very essential to people who are in need of this kind of treatment and will leave them without essential healthcare opportunities.’

The day after the bill was passed, high-profile Georgian transgender model Kesaria Abramidze was killed, reportedly from stab wounds, in the country’s capital, Tbilisi. Abramidze’s death has reignited concerns that the law will stoke hate crimes, homophobic and transphobic behaviour. Zourabichvili notably attended Abramidze’s funeral several days later. 

David Asatiani, Co-opted Member of the IBA Bar Issues Commission Policy Committee and Chairperson of the Georgian Bar Association (GBA), tells Global Insight that the GBA is following the law’s implications and ‘compliance with constitutional and international obligations’ closely. ‘We will continue to monitor the situation and engage in constructive dialogue or strategic litigation, if necessary, to ensure that the legal framework in Georgia promotes inclusivity and protects the rights of all individuals,’ he says. 

The ‘family values’ law has attracted criticism from the EU, which had already suspended accession negotiations with Georgia – talks that would potentially lead to the country joining the bloc – in July following the passing of the ‘foreign agents’ law. An EU spokesperson said the latest legislation ‘undermines fundamental rights of Georgians and risks further stigmatisation and discrimination of part of the population’. It cautioned it would ‘place further strain on EU-Georgia relations.’ 

In October the EU’s Delegation to Georgia announced on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the country will lose €121m in EU assistance – the remaining unspent EU funds from 2022 and 2023 – as a result of recent ‘democratic backsliding.’

The 26 October election is widely regarded as a public vote on whether Georgia wishes to embrace EU values or seek a path towards Russian-style authoritarianism. ‘Absolutely it’s a referendum,’ says Anna Gvarishvili, a Tbilisi-based journalist and Head of the Investigative Media Lab at the University of Georgia. ‘It sounds kind of poetic when I say it like this, but Georgian society is going through a huge process right now where we can decide finally which side we are on.’

There’s still strong popular support to join the bloc. Despite the latest restrictions on public protest, civil society organisations have organised a march supporting the country’s EU bid, to take place on 20 October. 

There have also been local efforts to challenge the legality of the ‘foreign agents’ law. Earlier in October Georgia’s Constitutional Court ruled that it wouldn’t suspend the law, but it did order a ‘substantive review’ of the legislation. 

GYLA is one of the NGOs that brought the legal challenge, and Oniani says the Court has wasted a ‘historic opportunity to resist the suspension of the country's European integration’. Since the law was enacted, GYLA has been targeted by attacks and received threatening phone calls labelling its employees ‘agents’. The NGO refuses to join the ‘foreign agents’ register – a move that Oniani says isn’t about ‘disobedience’, but ‘resilience against the law’. 

Some independent media outlets have identified loopholes and workarounds to circumvent the law, but Gvarishvili is concerned about the impact it’s already having on Georgia’s media landscape. The law, she says, ‘is so harsh because it targets the best journalists and the best media outlets that are truly independent and are not being financed by opposition parties or where there’s no political money being put in.’ 

The legislation has also posed a threat to electoral observations in the country. Earlier in October, Transparency International Georgia was forced to shutter its operations after the Anti-Corruption Bureau declared the NGO and its director as ‘subjects with a declared electoral aim’. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe co-rapporteurs for the monitoring of Georgia, Claude Kern and Edite Estrela, were among those expressing concern at this development. 

However, days later Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze urged the state-controlled body to reverse its decision to ‘prevent external manipulation during the electoral process’. Kobakhidze has since declared that the introduction of ‘advanced voting technologies’ will make vote-rigging ‘impossible’, although Gvarishvili still believes the election ‘won’t be free, it won’t be fair and the results won’t convey the will of the Georgian people.’ Despite this, she believes that the power lies with Georgians to bring about change in the election and calls for ‘unprecedented numbers’ to vote.

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