Liberty Institute members criticized number of parliamentary majority members and called their obstruction of Public Defender Sozar Subari on religious matters shameful. The MPs attacked part of Subari’s annual report to Parliament where he called for review of a Constitutional Treaty broken between the State and the Georgian Orthodox Church in 2002 to reduce inequality between religious organizations. According to Subari, the treaty does not comply with the Constitution granting superior status to the Georgian Orthodox Church.

Minutes before Subari presented his report, Nodar Grigalashvili, head of Parliament’s Education, Culture and Sport Committee as well as MPs Roman Kusiani and Roman Melia staged a protest walkout.

Liberty Institute members called the MPs behavior “shameful,” calling the protest without an argument discussion an attempt to ignore the important issue.

“This is an attempt to retain religion as issue of street debates. I would have trouble believing that this is useful for the political force these MPs represent,” Liberty Institute’s Giorgi Meladze said at a special press conference.

He justified Subari’s argument suggesting that the Georgian legislation with regards to religious organizations is discriminatory. “All the priviledges that the Orhodox Church enjoys are out of reach for other religious organizations. This should not be the case,” Meladze noted.

“These people [the MPs] do not really understand that they are members of parliament where they were elected to defend interests of not only the Orthodox Church, but also interests of all citizens of Georgia indiscriminate of their religious and ethnic background, “Liberty Institute’s Tea Tutberidze said.