Georgia Moves to Defend Property Rights

In a move that could prove critical for Georgia's controversial privatization campaign, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has indicated to opposition leaders that he will propose a draft law to expand protections for property rights.

The pledge was made in response to widespread allegations of a government strategy to improperly redistribute private property. While the administration has routinely ignored both international and local accusations of property rights violations over the past three years, the demolition of several privately owned shops and kiosks in Tbilisi has recently brought the issue to the forefront of public attention.

Local opposition leaders and business advocates have long accused the government of depriving property owners of their rights in a bid to enhance state revenues. Georgian Public Defender Solzar Subari says that he has been demanding the government pay more attention to the guaranteed rights of property owners for the past two years.

"What is taking place now in Tbilisi and Sighnaghi [a walled town in the eastern region of Kakheti that is the focus of an ambitious, government-funded redevelopment project] is simply the same thing that Lenin did in the 1920s, when he took property away from owners," Subari said, in an interview with EurasiaNet. "[T]hey are not thinking about people like something valuable, but something like a brick to build a new state